


Invaders Must Die

by noncorporealform



Category: Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Punk, Body Modification, Canon Disabled Character, Hydra (Marvel), M/M, PUNK BUCKY, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Secret Identity, Shrunkyclunks, Tattoos, amputee bucky
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-08
Updated: 2015-08-26
Packaged: 2018-01-24 00:29:58
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 16
Words: 46,969
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1585106
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/noncorporealform/pseuds/noncorporealform
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bucky gets rescued by some guy named Steve Rogers when some Hydra skinheads attack him in an alley. He has the idea that he'll have something sane in his life for once when they decide to go on a date, but then he learns that the guy he wants to date works for a secret organization named Shield and that Hydra aren't just lame skinheads that try to beat up punks.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I thought I'd go ahead and post a playlist of some of the music that inspired me/that I listened to while writing this.
> 
> [8tracks playlist](http://8tracks.com/lucy-dragoon/hydra-punks-f-k-off)
> 
> Also check out [this AWESOME art](http://tavviartblog.tumblr.com/post/85316433334/so-i-was-reading-a-stucky-fan-fiction-invaders) of punk Bucky by Sath!

The crack of knuckles hitting cheekbones echoed off the bricks. Barnes rolled as he fell back and his face hit the concrete, hard. A stream of slimy blood and spit streamed out of his mouth. He was grabbed by the shoulders and picked up like he was a rag doll. He felt the impact in his bones as he got shoved against the wall.

He looked at the three Nazi skinheads that had pinned him in the alleyway. They had already been blurry before they hit him. Being five beers down will do that to a guy. Even so, they looked exactly the same to him. The pathetic home-grown militia that thought that getting the same brand of cheap combat boots and shitty puffy jackets with some lame octopus-skull-thing patch made them an army. Hydra. What a joke.

“I can see the headlines,” he said. “Nazi Douchebags Beat Up Amputee Three to One, Still Got Their Teeth Knocked Out.”

The ringleader sneered, the gaping hole where the tooth Barnes had knocked out should have been. The guy looked like a cartoon character, so Barnes chuckled. He got hit again, another knock to the face, and this time they’d gone for the temple. His head rang and he saw double.

“No, you’re right. Too long. How about ‘Hitler Youth Still Irrelevant.’”

The skinhead holding him pulled his fist back and Barnes gritted his teeth, prepared for the next impact, his right hand in a fist.

There was a clang and Barnes jumped. For a moment, he was convinced it was from something hitting him. He saw the two skinheads behind their leader fly across the alley, one being thrown into the other. Somebody had hit one of them with the round lid of a garbage can hard enough to topple them both.

The skinhead ringleader let go of Barnes. He slid onto the ground, his boots slipping as he tried to find his footing over wet concrete. He slumped over and only listened as he heard the sounds of fighting.

He pulled himself back up when he heard bargain combat boots running in the distance. They shouted the usual crap about cutting off heads; he didn’t know what that was about. When he raised his head, he expected to see one of the usual kind. Another punk doing their part to fuck with the skinheads.

The guy crouching down in front of him might as well have been selling apple pies from a cart. Earnest, Norman Rockwell face, blonde, blue-eyed, khaki pants and all. Looking at him made Barnes feel like he was going to break out in hives.

“Are you alright?” said the guy, his voice deep with concern.

Barnes ran his tongue over the cut on his upper lip, tasted his own blood, and his lip curled up as the bitterness of blood stained the inside of his mouth. He looked back up, realize that this guy had probably never seen someone who’d had their tongue forked. When he saw the guy’s face change, Barnes smiled like a tiger after the kill, teeth stained pink with blood. Barnes thought of what he looked like, the full effect he wanted to have on people. Piercings in his face, hair dyed black, an arm full of tattoos, some more peeking out of his shirt, one even on the left side of his neck. All black, all geometrical symbols and solids. It wasn't just his tattoos that were dark. Not a scrap of color stood out on his clothes, him except the silver duct tape and safety pins holding together parts of his boots and jacket.

But it faltered when Barnes looked at him again. Really looked. The guy wasn’t shocked, or if he had been it had gone away quick. His full mouth was open, his lashes ( _stupid fucking gazelle lashes_ , Barnes thought) low over his eyes.

But the guy snapped himself out of it in a blink. Hell, the expression had only been there for a second.

“Your eyes don't look right. We gotta get you to the hospital,” said the guy. “You might have a concussion. Can you get up?”

He offered his hand. It was the left one.

 _Dumbass_ , Barnes thought.

Barnes slipped his right hand into the proffered palm. Barnes crossing it across their bodies as the guy pulled him up. After all the knocking about in the fight, his prosthetic slipped off his shoulder and fell to the ground with a hollow clatter.

“Fuck,” Barnes swore and started to bend over.

But the guy had gotten to it before him, picked it up without thinking. There was none of the usual jump people got after they saw a limb fall off him. No shock to the system, Barnes pulling them out of their assumption that everybody had all their parts by default. It was a little disappointing. He was, after all, riled up to fight and hadn't gotten to do it properly.

“Did you do this yourself?” the guy asked, looking at it. Of all things, he looked impressed.

Barnes looked down at it. It was the standard prosthetic model—really ,the cheapest. It was all he’d been able to afford, this plastic piece of crap. But then one day he realized he had a leftover can of silver spray paint and some black sharpies. An entire day of spraying and doodling later, he'd slapped a red nautical star on it, and there it was.

“Give it here,” Barnes said.

“Don’t worry, I can hold it,” the guy said.

With this stranger holding Barnes’ prosthetic in one hand, and holding him up with the other, they started to walk out of the alley.

“You got a name?” the guy asked.

“Barnes,” he said. "James Barnes. If anyone asks at the hospital, I go by Barnes. And don't let them call me James."

“Steve Rogers.”

 _Steve Rogers_. _Wow_. Barnes thought. Then he started to wonder how many polo shirts with a little alligator on them Steve Rogers had.

#

When he told Steve to take him to the VA one and not the private hospital that was closer, pulling out his wallet to get his card out, Steve asked what force he’d been in. Barnes answered robotically.

“Sergeant James Barnes, US Army 107th. Iraq. Got discharged two years ago.”

“You’re joking,” Steve said.

“What?”

“My dad was in the 107th.”

“No fuckin’ way,” Barnes said. "It's a small world after all."

He surprised himself when the smile that came over him was genuine. 

As they sat in the quiet sports car, the radio turned off, the part of DC they drove through abandoned at that time of night, the silence stretched. It wasn’t uncomfortable. Barnes just pressed against his wounds and enjoyed the absence of sound, with the exception of a ringing in his good ear from the blowout of the rock show. He only spoke again because he was genuinely curious.

“You in the military? Or, were you?” Barnes asked.

“Captain Steve Rogers," Steve replied. "Formerly SSR, now…now I’m something else. Just on leave while I figure some things out.”

“What things?”

“Like if I wanna get out.”

Barnes smiled again, but it faltered when he felt the inside of his mouth tear.

“Some advice,” Barnes said. “Run. Oh, crap. Shit. Ow.”

Barnes grabbed his ribs and gritted his teeth. The adrenaline was wearing off, he remembered what it felt like to have cracked ribs. His breath was shallow, as every breath he drew in felt like being stabbed.

“Maybe going faster?” Steve said.

“Faster would be better.”

#

His arm still wrapped around Steve’s shoulders to hold him up, Barnes limped towards the entrance of the hospital. A man came forward, his arms out, his phone still lit up because he’d just texted someone.

“Really, Bucky? Again?” he said to Barnes.

“Hey, Sam,” Barnes replied, waving weakly at him.

“Bucky?” Steve says.

“Shut up.”

#

Barnes sat up in the hospital bed. After the week he’d had, the beating, the general crap of the week he'd been trying to drink away, he thought a nap was in order. But Steve had been right about the concussion, and it wasn't safe yet. The sedatives made it pretty hard to stay awake, but there was the matter of never waking up to keep him from lying down. He felt the sting of the cracked ribs resurface in a sudden sting. He felt himself reaching to squeeze his chest with the left arm he didn’t have. He gritted his teeth, made himself forget it, then put his right hand over his ribs.

Barnes turned his head to look through the curtain that surrounded his bed. He saw him standing not far down the hall. Steve Rogers, talking to Sam. There it was, his worst nightmare. The pair of veterans, talking like old pals, Steve’s face lit up as he said something that made Sam laugh. A nurse passed by, shushed them and they both at least had the good sense to look embarrassed through their smiles.

Barnes caught Steve glancing at him. The corners of Steve's mouth turned up. There was a small wave. Barnes waved back.

 _Shit_ , Barnes thought as he felt a little sting in his chest. It wasn’t the cracked ribs. _That asshole is going to ask me out, and I’m going to say yes. God damn it_.

Steve and Sam came in, parting the curtain.

“You gonna give me another lecture?” Barnes asked Sam.

“Maybe when you’re not in a hospital bed,” Sam said. “But right now, Steve says he's got a question for you. Then I'm driving your sorry ass home and calling you every hour.”

"Well thanks, Sam," Barnes said. "I told you we should talk more outside the VA. So, Steve. What's on your mind?"

Barnes was trying to suppress a smile. Steve looked a little dreamy, blinking slow when he looked at him. Barnes had the kind of fluttery feeling when he was sure a guy liked him. Barnes started picturing it. All-American Steve Rogers going back to Barnes' crappy apartment or getting dragged to a nameless venue, sticking out like a sore thumb. It could be a nice change of pace.

The soft expression disappeared only a second later, and Steve was more somber. He had gotten serious, and Barnes had a heavy feeling in his stomach.

“I know it’s kind of soon, but it’s my job,” Steve said. “What do you know about Hydra?”

Barnes’ heart might as well have dropped onto the mattress, detaching itself out of sheer disappointment. Not the question he had wanted to be asked, not by a long shot.


	2. Chapter 2

“So there’s nothing you want to talk about?” Sam asked. “Nothing at all?”

“Nope,” Barnes said.

Barnes had his feet up on one of the chairs left behind from group. He had shown up five minutes before the hour was up. This way, Sam would still sit and talk with him, but he didn’t have to be around people that much. Why the VA insisted on pushing him into group sessions was lost on him. The people were good people, but sometimes he just wanted to skip the group part. At therapy and also at everything.

When Sam called him to 'check in' a few days after the concussion had faded, Barnes found himself at the hospital, acting as if it were his idea. But it was really Sam. Sam, who knew the right thing to say to get people to where they ought to be.

They sat across from each other, and Sam didn’t say a thing. He sat, and looked at Barnes.

“Okay,” Barnes said. “Jesus. Just don’t stare at me.”

“You gonna tell me why you seem to be actively seeking out your own personal warzones?”

“I didn't pick that fight. It’s not my fault neo-Nazis show up uninvited.”

“But you go ahead and you fight then anyway.”

“Yeah.”

“Why?”

“Captain America used to punch Nazis all the time and I see that asshole’s face everywhere since the Battle of New York. I guess I’m just feeling trendy.”

Sam laughed, his smile a bit crooked.

“I think you’re in a lot of pain,” Sam said.

“Well, I did get my ribs cracked and my kidneys are pretty bruised,” Barnes said through a smirk.

“You talk about the IED, you don’t mind telling me about your phantom pains. But there are things you haven’t talked about. You ready yet?”

“Can I go now?”

“Nobody’s making you be here.”

“Fine.”

Barnes stayed where he was. He knew he ought to, but he didn’t stand up. His right arm was crossed over his chest, clutching his ribs, and he pulled his lip ring into his mouth, bit the metal before releasing it. He knew it was a tell, but he couldn't help the figeting.

“I’m having the thought that I’m about to do something stupid,” Barnes said.

“More stupid than fighting three skinheads?” Sam asked.

“I wanna call that guy.”

Sam’s face broke out into a sly smile. Barnes rolled his eyes as Sam nodded.

“Well alright. Why don’t you?” Sam asked.

“He gave me that number in case I had more to tell him about Hydra. I don’t,” Barnes said. "What the hell else would he want to talk to me about?"

“That’s the only reason you can call him? What gave you that impression?”

He tried to articulate it, couldn’t, opened his mouth and then snapped it shut.

“You know what?” Sam said. “If you don’t call him, I will. That guy was stunning.”

Barnes shot Sam a glare. He put both boots on the ground, stoop up, and marched right past.

“Fucking unbelievable,” Barnes said. Then, under his breath: “I can’t believe that fucking worked.”

“Yeah, me neither,” Sam said as he watched Barnes march out of the room.

#

The scrap of paper Steve had put his phone number on was still crumpled in his pocket. Barnes took it out, looked at the digits like they were a code to be broken. He was hovering over the counter at the VA front desk, the guest phone the receptionist had handed him sitting to the right. He picked up the phone, listened to the dial tone.

Then he looked at the TV in the waiting room, the one that was always either turned to MSNBC or Cartoon Network.

 _Him again_.

Blurry footage of Captain America rushing into some situation. Barnes felt something sour in his mouth, and he wanted to spit. This guy, this relic they’d pulled out of a scrap of comics, running around and getting everybody hopped up on truth, justice, and the American way or whatever. And he never even showed his face. At least Tony Stark had been up front about being Iron Man.

He didn’t want to keep watching to figure out the details. He picked up the phone, dialed Steve’s number.

Voicemail. He began to panic as the recording of Steve’s voice telling him to leave a message went by quicker than he was prepared for, or ever was prepared for.

“Hey this is Bucky. I mean, Barnes. You know, the guy that—yeah, I’m sure you remember. I just wanted to know if you’re still in town. I don’t have a cell phone, I’m kind of off the grid. It’s not an emergency.”

He rattled off his home phone number and hung up before saying goodbye.

The bus ride home through DC took longer than usual. Traffic was bad, something about a car chase according to the girl on her smart phone next to him. He shrugged, put a pair of headphones in. He picked up the iPod touch that was cracked and scratched all to hell, but which still worked despite being from 2008. He nodded his head as the music hummed in his ears. A man in a business suit was sitting with heaviness like a toad, able-bodied but taking up space in the crowded front seats, glaring at how Barnes was nodding his head.

Barnes bared his teeth like a pissed-off chimpanzee before turning away and putting his boots up on the seat in front of him. He let Cole Porter play as he watched downtown DC pass him by.

#

The voicemail light was blinking when Bucky stumbled into his studio. Wondering which collection agency wanted to talk to him, he let the messages run.

“Hi, this is Steve Rogers. I was about to go out of town and I wanted to call before I did. I wanted to say how much I appreciate your help, and to check up and see how you’re healing. Also, there’s going to be a fair in town, rides, games, the whole deal, so I wanted to see if you maybe…”

There was a pause. Listening to this guy having to reach for words was too much and Barnes rolled his eyes. But he was smiling, too, picturing the massive, muscled man he'd met stammering through the process of asking someone out.

“Anyway, you have my number. Leave me a message, I’ll call you after I’m done with—with the thing I’m doing.”

Barnes listened to the time stamp. He’d called hours before Barnes had called him.

“Huh,” Barnes said to himself

He looked around his place, and thought about clean-cut Captain Rogers. Khakis, nice shoes, button-down shirts. Something like mid-twenties and looking like he had put his life together already. Then there was Barnes.

A dozen empty cans of bargain brand soda were piled on his desk next to an ailing laptop. His garbage can was overflowing with empty Korean ramen bowls. Posters, none of them framed, of bands he’d seen were pasted up sloppily. He’d written on his wall with Sharpie and so had most of his friends. Band names, signatures, and song lyrics ran into each other in various colors, the biggest piece of graffiti the words "Invaders Must Die!" His vinyls were in milk crates. He had no furniture that had come from a store. His only saving grace was that he made his bed with military corners, and his clothes were neatly put away. No TV, no games, no usual signs of millennial occupation.

For the first time in two years, he cared about what his life looked like to someone else. It made him hate the very idea of Steve Rogers. Steve Rogers, who wanted to take him to the god damn _fair_.

 _Who even goes on dates to the fair anymore?_ He wondered. _Steve Rogers, that’s who_. _And now, apparently, me_. _Son of a bitch_.

#

Barnes was wearing full armor. His eyes were lined with black, and the side of his head was freshly shaven. He hadn't bothered to hide his prosthetic under a jacket, opting for a vest instead. It shone like real metal, the colorful lights of all the machines reflecting off it as the sun went down. The other arm was bare, and it was tattooed from his shoulder to his knuckles.  His boots were women’s, technically, but he liked the buckles, and the little heels. He wore his metal earcuffs, spray-painted matte black, and his plugs were his biggest ones, looping around in order to look like tentacles. He had cheap pewter rings on nearly every finger on his right arm, some of them too small, so they were placed on the tips of his fingers. A pendant cast from a rat skull hanging from a leather string was the last thing he'd put on.

He saw Steve standing by the ticket gate. Even from behind, he couldn't be mistaken for anyone else. The military stance, the ridiculous, broad shoulders stretching his button-down as it strained over his shoulder blades. It just made his waist look smaller.

He was waiting for Steve to turn and his face to fall. To see fully what Bucky had chosen to be and know he’d made a huge mistake.

Instead, Steve turned around and his breath came in through a mouth open in a small o. He smiled, and it was stupid and infectious. A second later, Barnes’ mouth was curled up, bow-like. His head was up, haughty.

“Bucky, hey,” Steve said.

“Really?” Barnes said, his smile falling off like a badly hung painting.

“I like Bucky. It’s not really the kind of nickname you hear anymore.”

“I know. Now buy me some greasy fair food and I might forgive you for that.”

The beer was flat, but it was cold. DC was already getting humid again, and despite the fact that he was wearing a vest with a tank underneath, he was starting to sweat. He sipped on it while he looked at what was happening on the picnic table.

Barnes thought _he_ was a glutton. The chance to get someone to buy him whatever food he wanted was too good to pass up, so he’d gotten a cheeseburger, an elephant ear, and roast corn in addition to the overpriced beer. But then there was Steve. Funnel cake, corn, three hot dogs, four burgers, a full meal of Chinese food that barely deserved the title, and a deep fried Twinkie. No beer, though, just good old-fashioned Coca-Cola. Most of it was eaten, the wrappers strewn everywhere.

“I expected about five other people to show up, but I guess not,” Barnes said.

“Yeah, I should really start watching my figure,” Steve said as he shrugged and smiled.

Barnes’ eyes flicked down at the slimness of his torso, the broad, muscular shoulders. It wasn’t that Barnes wasn’t fit—he really was. That was half the reason he chose the vest. He was pretty proud of the fact that all he needed was some heavy-ass dumbbells at home and it kept his arm and torso muscular. But this guy probably ran every day and spent hours at the gym. It was enough to make a guy sick.

“How are you doing?” Steve asked. “I mean, since you were in the hospital?”

“It’s been four days, so I’m good,” Barnes said. “Throw me at some Hydra skinheads and I’m ready.”

“Can I give you some advice?”

“Are you going to tell me not to act out or something? Because I’ve already got a therapist.”

“My advice to you is,” Steve began, like a grandpa about to drop some wisdom. “That Hydra isn’t what you think it is. These aren’t your usual neo-Nazis—though that’s bad enough. There’s something big going on with these guys. My organization is still trying to figure out exactly what that is. But I've been dealing with these guys since—for a while, so just be careful. That's all I can say.”

“Are you black ops?” Barnes asked, narrowing his eyes at him as he started in on his burger.

“Not exactly.”

Music started to come in from the tent next to them. Barnes watched as Steve’s face softened. He was looking down and to the right, but really he wasn’t looking at anything. Barnes recognized the look. He’d seen it a lot in group. Soldiers did that, remembered stuff at the oddest of times. He wondered what exactly it was about Dinah Shore that made him like that.

“We should go watch the old people dance,” Barnes suggested.

“Why?” Steve asked, his eyes narrowing.

“Because old people are cute.”

Steve smiled like he knew something Barnes didn’t.

“Or we could dance,” Steve suggested.

“You wanna put your hands on my hips and advertise that you’re with me?” Barnes said through a laugh and a bite of food.

“I missed out on a lot of dancing when—a long time ago. I don’t mean to miss out on that kind of thing anymore.”

Bucky chewed, contemplating, narrowing his eyes but smiling. He swung his legs over the bench, came around to Steve’s side. He held out his hand, and Steve took it.

They were going towards the tent when he heard it, that word.

“Freak.”

Barnes took a quick glance at the guy who’d passed him, shot him a glare the passing asshole never saw, but kept on moving. But Steve had stopped.

“Excuse me?” Steve asked.

The man turned around, his lips up in a sneer. “I call him like I see ‘em.”

“Hey,” Steve said as the guy started to walk away. “You owe my friend an apology.”

Barnes was about to pull him back, say it was okay. But then he didn’t. He looked at the expression on Steve’s face, then at the smug asshole who’d done the bare minimum of rude things people usually say to Barnes. He shut his mouth. He wanted to see where this would go.

“Why? He’s dressed like a freak. I would think it’s what he’d want to hear.”

Steve stepped forward, his brows were together and his teeth were gritted.

“Apologize. Now.”

The man looked over to Barnes with a sneer on his face. Then Barnes smiled, stuck out his tongue and crossed the muscles where it had been split.

“He’s fucking gross,” the man said.

Steve told him to leave before he called fair security and that’s when the man threw the first punch. Steve dodged it with the grace of a dancer. He watched this guy try again and again to land a single hit, but all Steve had to do was move out of the way. When he lunged at Steve, he just had to move aside and shove him a little out of the way. He flew into the side of a food truck with a loud clang.

“Jesus. God damn it. Okay, I’m sorry,” the man shouted.

There was a crowd. It was small, but they were watching them. Barnes saw the first of the smart phones come out, some guy in a Georgetown sweater getting ready to film.

Barnes grabbed Steve by the front of his shirt and dragged him away. If Steve hadn’t wanted to go along, he could have torn himself away easily, but he let himself be dragged. Not just away, but to a specific place.

A few yards away was the fairground bathrooms. He dragged him inside, ignored the people who were watching them go to the back of the restroom. Barnes shoved Steve into the stall and pushed him down onto the seat before closing the stall door behind him.

 “Why’d you do that?” Barnes asked, his voice clip and stern.

“I don’t like bullies,” Steve said.

“That was pretty stupid, Rogers.”

“Says the dumbass who took on three skin-heads with one arm.”

Bucky looked down at him, his eyes darkening. He looked like he was about to emit a hungry growl.

The next moment he was on Steve’s lap, grabbing his face and kissing him. It was furious enough that his breath hissed out of his nose, as he refused to pull away to breathe. Steve’s hand was in his hair, pulling on the long strands falling to the left, the other hand with a fistful of his vest, like he was getting ready to steer Barnes’ torso.

He craved the sounds of surprise that came out of Steve, knew he’d never been kissed like this. Not with metal against his lips, or a tongue like that in his mouth. He then pulled Steve’s tongue into his mouth, sucked on it like he could pull the soul out of his body.

Then a sound from inside Steve’s jacket pocket. It wasn’t a ringtone or a text message alert. It was an emergency alert message.

“Don’t,” Barnes warned, speaking with his mouth pressed against Steve’s, his hand a claw around Steve’s jaw.

“It’s important,” Steve said, but his voice didn't sound like he believed that was true.

“Do not, _do not_ ,” Barnes warned, but Steve pulled away.

Barnes’ eyes rolled far back into his head when Steve reached into his coat pocket. Steve looked at the screen, and his face fell. All the blood that had rushed to his cheeks had drained.

“This is—this is important,” Steve said. “It’s bad news. I have to—”

Barnes collapsed into Steve. His head was in the crook of his shoulder. The passion had fled from the pair of them, and they sat there with soft touches, and tickling breaths.

Bucky lifted his head up, whispered his address in Steve’s ear.

The next moment Steve was gone. Barnes was alone, sitting with his legs splayed out in front of him, his semi slowly dying. He pictured himself from the outside, this disheveled punk who’d pulled a guy into a fairground bathroom, only to have that guy bail.

He swore, kicked the wall with his boot and a piece of tile shattered and fell to the floor.


	3. Chapter 3

It was bad for him, he knew it. He’d sworn he’d give this crap up, stop the addiction, but after the disaster of the night before, he couldn’t help himself. He went two blocks away from his apartment to the convenience store. It smelled like old cigarettes and fried food drying out under heat lamps.

A minute later he dropped his haul on the counter. Two packs of bubblegum, some Sour Patch Kids, strawberry Twizzlers, and Haribo cherries. He looked down, grabbed a box of Nerds from the display under the counter and added it to the pile.

“That’s everything?” said the teenager behind the counter, her voice monotone.

Bucky threw down the twenty, let her give him the change.

“Have a terrific day,” she said robotically, after dropping every item in the bag one by one, as a way to kill time.

Bucky stood at the bus stop, the plastic bag filled with candy hanging off his arm. He had the package of Twizzlers in his right hand, and he tore them open with his teeth. Something about peeling the strings, pulling on them to snap them, made him feel slightly better.

His mind wandered as he pulled, snapped, chewed. Steve fucking Rogers, who Barnes simultaneously wanted to see again, but who he wished he could hide from forever. He thought he should not give a shit and just call the guy, but he rolled his eyes at his own stupidity.

 _How does that conversation go?_ he wondered. _“Hey, I really wanted to hook up with you in that bathroom stall, let’s try for my shitty studio apartment this time.” Fucking pathetic._

There was a man in a suit standing at the stop, a briefcase held firmly in his hand. It was a chrome case, the kind you see in bank heist movies. The fellow transit customer turned his head to look directly at Barnes. He wore mirrored sunglasses and a hat with a wide brim.

Barnes stared right back, chewed while looking directly at him.

“Breakfast,” Barnes said. “It’s the most important meal of the day.”

It was, of course, two in the afternoon.

The man turned away without changing his expression. He reminded Barnes of a robot, or maybe a body snatcher. Barnes looked away too, and they stood in silence.

Then it rushed over Barnes, like cold water had been dumped on him. His nerves were alive, and his vision was sharp. Even smells were crisper. He was aware of the fact that he was exposed, alone, tactically unsafe. He was thinking like he did in Iraq, but this time he didn’t have a squad to back him up. He was in enemy territory, completely alone.

 _You’re not in Iraq_ , he told himself as soon as he realized what his body was doing. But the feeling wouldn’t go away. _Breathe, fucking breathe._

There were eyes on him, he could feel them, and he was standing in the worst possible place. There could be snipers, there could be a strike team. Being between the canyon of buildings, he felt like he was in a killbox. He slipped his candy back into the plastic bag, and as slowly as he could, he reached behind him and placed his bag on the empty bench so as not to make any sound, to not draw attention to the fact that he was looking for an out.

His brain was still screaming at him not to freak out as he looked for the exit, wondered if he would be safe if he just went back to his apartment. He looked at the guy waiting for the bus. This was just a normal guy; sure he looked like a Man in Black, but he was probably going to work. At two in the afternoon, like you do.

 _Do not freak out_ , he told himself, his own voice in his head sounding like it came through gritted teeth. 

His mind scrambled to remember the breathing exercises he'd been taught when he'd come home, the ones Sam tried to reinforce. He couldn't remember a single one of them.

There was an SUV coming around the corner. It looked like something out of a spy movie, with tinted windows, probably armored. Its engine rumbled as it came close.

 _You’re at home_ , Bucky screamed. _This shit doesn’t happen at home_.

Barnes felt himself break out into a sweat as the SUV came to a slow stop at the stoplight, which had just turned red. Just a normal car obeying traffic laws, he tried to convince himself, probably a family driving around. His fist flexed open and closed as he tried to stop his muscles from seizing up.

The briefcase of the man next to him flipped open like it was spring-loaded and something huge and metal popped out. The Man in Black caught it in mid-air.

Barnes reacted in a second, his reflexes already alive from paranoia. Without thinking about it, he grabbed his prosthetic, used it as a shield. He was knocked back, saw blue sparks, but he was able to kick the guy once in the gut before he wheeled away, taking several huge steps back.

When he looked down at his prosthetic, the metallic paint was covered in the black soot of an electrical burn. He smelled the ozone of electricity mixed with spray can paint and melting plastic.

The doors to the SUV opened and two men got out. They began to march towards him, and they flicked their wrists so that their metal batons extended in their hands. The Man in Black was recovering, holding his stomach, the rod he had tried to hit him with crackling with blue electricity.

 _Okay. This is happening_.

He backed away, and his hip hit something. He looked down at the garbage can he’d just hit, and the bowl of sand and snuffed cigarettes on top of it. He’d always wondered if you could pick up those things.

The cigarette ash bowl came out easily and he threw the spray of ash at them. It was as good as throwing a smoke bomb. The three of them stumbled back, coughing, their eyes shut tight. He had the chance to hit them all, so he bashed one after the other upside the head with the bowl, the metal clanging against skull and reverberating up the street. He kicked at them, went for the kneecaps, swept their feet from under them. Two of them were down.

There was a crackling in the air and Barnes dropped the bowl. The Man in Black stabbed at him with the taser device. Holding on to a huge, metal bowl would be the worst idea. He was back to just his fist.

Barnes shuffled back, but the man didn’t move. Bucky couldn’t tell what he was thinking with his eyes hidden behind mirrored sunglasses. He looked around for something to pick up. The sidewalk was clean, lately swept, the garbage picked up and everything that was meant to be permanent, like a bench, drilled into the pavement.

He had an idea. Barnes didn’t allow himself to think about it, so it was foolproof.

The man strode forward, lunged. Bucky held his prosthetic up and blocked it, but then he ran forward with all the force of his legs. He ran the man backwards until he hit the pole of the bus stop sign, and there was a clanging ring as the back of his skull hit it. Barnes moved around him, got on his back, and tackled him to the ground. With one foot he stepped on the hand that was holding the Taser, and his arm was wrapped around his neck, one knee helping to apply pressure.

If he hadn’t exercised every day, hadn't kept his military schedule of exercises, he wouldn’t have been able to do this. It took longer than usual, but eventually the man fell limp in the sleeper hold.

He pulled back, breathing heavily, a huge melted spot on his prosthesis slightly smoking. Then he saw one of the men from the SUV stirring, opening his eyes. He came over to him, and recognized him as the driver. It took one more punch to put him back down. Then he patted his pockets, found the keys.

When he got behind the wheel, he had the thought that his driver’s license was suspended just before he gunned the engines, blowing through the red light and seeing the flash behind him of the traffic camera.

He was panicking. He could barely breathe, and everything around him was blurred around the edges. He tried to collect his thoughts. The best thing to do was to actually figure out what the smartest thing to do even was before he actually did it. He decided he’d go to the police station. That was what people ought to do, go to the police. He was just congratulating himself on what a good idea that was when he pulled to a stop outside the VA hospital and killed the engine. He looked at the clock. Little less than half an hour before group.

He was laughing. He was sitting in the car and laughing. He just realized the radio hadn’t been on. So mercenaries don’t listen to anything when they’re on their way to kidnap and kill. That was hilarious for some reason.

With a shaking hand he opened the door and barely kept himself from stumbling because the car rolled forward. It wasn’t in park, but once it came to a gentle rest against the curb, Barnes decided he had bigger things to worry about.

 _Why aren’t I at the police station?_ He wondered. Then he decided he’d call them from inside, the courtesy phone at the front desk.

He saw military police, four of them, running away from their perimeter spots and heading inside. He narrowed his eyes at them.

“What the hell…?” Barnes muttered under his breath.

He was able to slip into the hospital as people passed him, following evacuation orders. The MPs hadn’t noticed him, and Barnes was used to being noticed. He saw the tell-tale signs of panic, and somewhere inside someone screamed.

It was like he’d stepped outside himself. His heart wasn’t racing anymore, his vision wasn’t blurry. He didn’t remember being this calm since the last time he’d really, really needed himself to be the one who was the unexpected and undeniable king of calm.

He bypassed the MPs that he knew wouldn’t let him pass, ducked into the office that lead to the back hallway. When he stepped out there was a flag pole on the ground, the pole separated into two parts when it fell. Barnes grabbed the heavy metal pipe, slung it over his shoulder to keep it from dragging, and he marched in.

He saw them before they saw him. He hid behind the corner as two men came closer, dragging a hospital patient out of the wing with a sack over her head. He waited for them to round, his eyes shaped like daggers.

There was no question these were the same guys, but they weren’t there for Barnes. He spotted the clothes of the mercs coming down the hall; they all wore the same make bullet-proof vest, the same black utility pants. Some little shit militia for hire, no doubt. They were headed towards the rear emergency exits. It had to be the same agenda, snatching people up, but what for? And why go ten minutes away to grab him while they’re at it? How many of these teams were in play?

He'd ask later, he decided, as they stopped in their tracks at the sight of Barnes appearing.

The sound of metal hitting flesh reverberated through the hall when he slammed the pipe across one of their faces, and the second guy grunted when Barnes kicked him hard in the stomach. He knocked him over for good measure and clanged him over the head. They both laid on the ground, limp and unconscious.

He pulled the woman they’d had aside, gently removed the bag from over her head. She was just a kid, younger than Barnes had been when he was discharged. She still had bandages on, and her eyes were heavy with seeing. He’d seen that face, remembered looking at it in the mirror for months and months, until he couldn’t stand mirrors anymore. This is who they picked to grab?

“You’re okay,” Barnes said. Military police rounded the corner and he pointed to them. “Go with them, do what they say.”

She nodded and he let her go. He jogged away, ignoring the commands to halt from the MPs. He was already around the corner, gone.

He got to two more pairs of mercs before the MPs caught up. It had gotten quiet, the hospital had almost locked the situation down.

Then he saw Sam, who was looking around the corner, fists clenched and ready at his side. He looked up to lock eyes with Barnes. He thought for a second that Sam was going to tell him to get the hell out, but instead he gestured to the side. Barnes remembered military hand signals like a second language. He got to where Sam told him to go. They waited, listening as the mercs argued with each other.

“This one’s on a gurney. We don’t got time to get him to the van. Let’s just get out of here, the op is done.”

“As many as possible. That’s what the man upstairs said. Pick him up if you have to. We’re calling in all our assets.”

“He’s got a spinal injury.”

“Do you know what this guy is? He’ll be fine.”

Sam looked at Barnes, and they shared a steady look. Sam made one last signal. _Now_.

They both charged in, Barnes sweeping at their feet, using the pipe to knock them down and keep them there. He turned, ready for more fighting, a craving to finally finish this. His blood was hot. Righteous.

Barnes’ entire body went cold when he saw him, stopped like he’d been flash-frozen. Sound disappeared, but not all at once. Sound reverberated like the deepness of a single drumbeat as it echoed away, further and further, until the sound was no more. He wasn’t breathing. Couldn’t breathe. He was staring with wild eyes through the strands of hair that had fallen over his face.

Flashes. Metal and concrete, factory walls, the sound of construction ever-present. But the memory moved, shook, like a piece of thirty-five millimeter film about to roll out of the projector.

“Well look who it is,” the rough-faced, black-haired man said.

This man squared up to Barnes, started moving, his eyes level, and his shoulders dropping as he slowly walked over.

Barnes heard his own voice from far away, knew he wasn’t saying it out loud.

_Barnes, James Buchanan, Sergeant, 32557…_

“I don’t know what we’re going to do with that look," he said to Barnes. "Those ear-things: you need surgery to fix that?”

The sound of Sam behind him grunting, throwing punches, getting hit, was faint.

_barnes 3255 sergeant barnes james 55 buchanan 32…_

“It’s okay. We’ll do what we gotta to make you nice and presentable,” he finished.

Barnes felt it in the back of his throat. He was about to scream.

The sound of wire whipping through the air was almost undetectable, but it was there. The man had heard it, same as Barnes. The wire was blocked when the black-haired man put his arm up against his neck. But then she was there, her legs wrapped around his upper body like a vice. All Barnes could process in that moment was _red_ as the curtain of bone-straight hair fell over her face.

With a huge heave and twist that looked nearly effortless, she pulled the man down and he grunted as he slammed into the ground. She landed on both feet. She pulled her fist back, ready to punch down and Barnes saw a spark of blue electricity on the back of her hand. But the other had something in his hand. There was a flash and a bang.

For a minute everything was white and blank. Barnes didn’t know where he was, but sound started to come back after the ringing was just another sensation overlaying what was there instead of being _everything_.

Barnes didn’t know how he had gotten on the floor, but he was sitting in a corner, the flag pole clutched in his hand. He felt another pair of hands help him to let it go. He hadn’t realized grabbing it that hard was hurting him, turning his knucles white.

“Are you okay?” Her voice was deep, and the compassion in it felt good. Like a salve.

“That man—,” Barnes said.

“You did good. But we’re getting people out of here, it’s not safe.”

“That man—” Barnes’ voice was a tremor, shaking from fear. “I knew him.”

She lowered her face, tried to make eye contact, but Barnes wouldn’t look into her eyes.

“You know Rumlow?”

“That’s not what he called himself,” Barnes said this in a whisper.

The words were supposed to just be a thought, but he spoke them anyway. Then he raised his head to look her in the eyes. He was begging her not to ask.

“What did he call himself?” she asked, her voice like a gentle pull on a delicate string she didn’t want to snap.

His voice cracked as easily as ancient porcelain.

“I don’t remember.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I just wanted to let everybody know about Tavvi's [excellent punk!Bucky art work](http://tavviartblog.tumblr.com/post/85316433334/so-i-was-reading-a-stucky-fan-fiction-invaders)! Thanks so much!

They changed vehicles three times in three separate garages. The last one they got into was a black van, which they drove out of the city. Barnes had never been outside of DC proper. He spent the entire drive with his feet on the seat in front of him, his forehead against the glass as he stared out the window. Sam was in the car with him, had refused to leave him when the agents were gathering people to question. Barnes had tabled the question of why the woman with the red hair had actually insisted Sam come along. Natasha. That was her name.

He watched the greenery pass by, the suburbs getting smaller as farms and bigger estates dotted the landscape. Then there it was, at the end of a long, dirt driveway that was an arrow-straight path through a field of overgrown grass.

The old colonial house was in need of another coat of white paint, as had cracked and peeled in the humidity. It would have looked like one of those long-abandoned places that get photographed and put on creepy abandoned building blogs, were it not for the fact that the lights were on.

“Sam, Barnes,” Natasha said. “Welcome to SHIELD.”

“This is your secret base?” Sam said. “I gotta say, I was expecting the Triskelion to be the secret headquarters or something, and less Disney’s Haunted Mansion.”

“Oh no, the Triskelion is ours. This is just a SHIELD bolt-hole.”

“Anything else owned by a secret government agency? Like maybe the world’s biggest ball of yarn?”

“How did you know?”

When Sam smiled, Barnes smiled, even though it felt like something someone far away had done, and not him.

They opened the van doors and stepped outside. The night was a little sultry, and cicadas and frogs were making noise in the woods around the house. The animals and insects were loud, but it wasn't the usual noise Barnes was used to. No sounds of traffic or people at all. No comfort of an apartment building full of neighbors, or the steadfastness of roads filled with cars and busses. Barnes realized that it was just him and Sam amongst strangers out there.

Barnes lifted his head at the noise of a screen door and saw who had come out of the front entrance to greet them.

Steve was staring down at Barnes like he’d seen him rise from the dead. Barnes had the thought that the expression on Steve's face was the most like a sad Disney puppy he’d ever seen anybody look.

“Bucky—,” Steve began.

“You got any food?” Barnes said before Steve could go on, turning around to look at Natasha.

“Kitchen’s fully stocked,” Natasha said. “Take a right, and through the dining room.”

“Thanks.”

Barnes lowered his head, moved past Steve and through the screen door.

The inside wasn’t in much better shape than the outside. The wallpaper was old, and peeling in a lot of places. The floorboards were weathered and cracked, and what furniture there was hadn’t been covered and had been damage by dust and weather. The house would have looked completely abandoned if it weren’t for the heavy wires, some as thick as a clenched fist, snaking through every room, and up walls and banisters.

The kitchen was fully stocked, like Natasha said it would be. But as he stood in front of a cabinet full of food, he couldn’t quite process what he was seeing. He wondered if they had just some instant ramen, and what the hell quinoa was. He realized he was hungrier than he’d ever been in his life, but after looking at all the food anyone could possibly want or need, he couldn’t bring himself to crave any of it.

Barnes knew it was Steve that had walked into the kitchen when he heard the doors swing open and whisper closed. It couldn’t be anybody else, not with the way the room felt filled up with an undeniable presence.

“I saw your name on the list,” Steve said. “The list of people Hydra was going to take. I was too far away. If I had known, I would have been there. I really thought they took you.”

His voice was a graveyard of regrets and Barnes hated hearing it. Barnes shrugged as he closed the cabinet doors.

“Well, I can take care of myself," Barnes said. "Although, there was a casualty.”

Barnes gestured to the empty space where his prosthetic should have been.

“That’s too bad,” Steve said through a sad smile.

“I’m thinking of giving it a Viking funeral," Barnes said. "Put it on a little boat and watch it burn as it floats down the Potomac and on to Valhalla.”

“I think I know a guy who could help you with that.”

Barnes smirked as he opened the door to the cabinet again. He had a moment of realizing he’d done this before. He wasn’t taking another look. He’d just forgotten that he’d ever looked in the first place.

He slammed the door so hard that the crack of wood hitting wood echoed through the house.

“WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON?” Barnes yelled.

Barnes had to close his eyes, taking a long breath in, which shook as he released it. He held it, his head cocking to the side. Breathed in, out.

His eyes opened to glare at Steve. Steve steeled himself against that look, his spine growing straighter.

“It was Hydra," Steve said. "It was an all-out attack. They hit five hospitals and who knows how many individuals in five cities.”

“Hydra is a gang of shitty skinheads that hang around clubs to beat up teenagers for wearing band t-shirts and dyeing their hair,” Barnes pointed out.

“Those are foot soldiers. They’ve been recruiting, but Hydra’s much bigger than that. We’re only figuring out how big.”

“So why the hell did they come after me? After any of us? They were all military, right?”

“Not just military. Everybody on the list was a POW.”

Barnes’ face shifted. The anger changed. It was indignant, his eyes boiling with a fury that was barely contained. When he realized he saw a less naked version of the same thing in Steve’s face, he understood a bit better why he liked this football-scholarship-looking asshole so much.

#

The chairs in the east living room had been brought into a circle. Sam and Natasha were in the middle of talking when Barnes and Steve walked in. Sam and Natasha had been talking, leaning together as she talked. She was smiling, utterly pleased, and Sam looked stunned. He practically looked like he'd been told he was about to win an awawrd. When they saw Barnes and Steve approaching, Natasha closed whatever manila envelope she had been showing Sam and slid it back into a leather briefcase.

“What’s going on?” Barnes asked.

“Sit down,” Natasha said.

Barnes narrowed his eyes, looked to the expectant expression on all three of their faces. He did as she'd asked, sitting down, kicking his legs out in front of him and slumping in the chair.

“I feel like I’m about to be interrogated,” Barnes said.

“That’s not what this is,” Natasha said. “Actually, it’s half of why you’re here, Sam.”

Sam seemed uneasy. Whatever was going on, it was obvious he wasn’t completely comfortable with it. But Barnes knew that if Sam, of all people, were about to bend or even break the rules of his professionalism, it was something big. The worried knot in Barnes’ stomach tightened.

“You don’t have to do or say anything you don’t want to,” Sam said. “But Natasha’s filled me in. This is big. That conversation we’ve been avoiding. We need to have it.”

“We have to ask how you know Rumlow,” Natasha finished for him.

Barnes seethed and he didn’t mind showing it, an uncomfortable squirm going through him. For just a second he was back in the siege of the VA hospital again, and his mind was pedaling in order not to be pulled even further back.

“I told you, I don’t remember,” Barnes said.

“That is the conversation we haven’t had,” Sam pointed out. “You won’t talk about your capture. But if Rumlow was in Iraq--”

“The Ten Rings had me in Iraq, not Hydra.”

“If Rumlow was there, it was Hydra,” Steve said.

“Why are you interested in him anyway?” Barnes asked.

“He’s the man who killed Nick Fury,” Natasha said.

The way Natasha and Steve went quiet, the air in the room hanging heavy with sobriety, made Barnes realize Nick Fury must have been someone important. But all the same--

“Am I supposed to know who that is?” Barnes asked.

“No, you’re not,” Natasha said. “That’s sort of the point. He was the director of SHIELD. And Rumlow assassinated him last night.”

Barnes looked over to Steve, his brow pulled down after he understood.

“That alert you got--,” Barnes began.

“Yeah,” Steve confirmed.

“We were able to get back the information Fury had just retrieved,” Natasha explained. “The list of names and the instructions for their extraction is just some of the information we’ve seized, but as far as we know, Rumlow and his Strike team got away with most of what Fury was about to debrief me on. The only thing we know for certain is that the kidnapped soldiers are part of something called Winter Storm.”

“What the hell is Winter Storm?” Barnes asked.

“If I were to guess,” Steve said, his voice barely containing his indignation. “The first wave of a terror attack. They didn’t have to be seen when they attacked those hospitals. They could have extracted silently, gone undercover. Hydra's been hiding since the forties, but now they want to be seen. They want everybody to know what they are capable of, and that they aren't afraid to go after soldiers.”

“Never underestimate the power of visibility,” Natasha said, looking directly at Steve as she said so.

“So what does it have to do with us?” Barnes asked. “What do I have in common with those other POWs?”

“You might have all been a part of something, but you didn’t know it,” Natasha said. “Which is why we need to see if you can remember anything.”

“You don’t have to do anything you’re not comfortable with,” Sam said as immediately as he could.

“Oh, is that so?” Barnes said. “Good. I’m going to bed.”

“Sergeant Barnes,” Natasha said, her voice firm.

“No. I’m sorry, I hated group at the VA, and I’m not about to have it here after fighting my way out of a kidnapping, and coming face-to-face with Crossbones. I—”

His voice choked in his throat when he heard that name come out of his mouth. He felt fear, like the vibrations of a single drumbeat, go through him. He couldn’t look at them, but he knew they were staring.

The flight part of his fight or flight hard-wiring kicked in and he spun on his heel. He didn't make any excuses as he left the room. He wasn’t running up the stairs of the house, but he could tell he was moving quick. He had been looking at his feet, and when he looked up he was confronted with a hallway full of rooms.

“Second one down is yours,” he heard Steve say.

Barnes turned to see Steve standing just behind him. He was trying to be helpful.

“Thanks,” Barnes muttered.

“And that’s me,” Steve said as he pointed to the room next door.

Barnes shook his head, as if he could shake off the confusion. He didn’t even say “okay” or “goodbye” to Steve, just marched to the door and shut himself inside.

He switched on the light. The room was like a stripped bed and breakfast. In the room was a big bed, with what should have been a canopy bare of any fabric and chipping gold paint. It was just posts holding up a square mattress with standard, low-thread count sheets. There was a fireplace that was half-collapsed, and a little wooden table in the corner, with only one chair to sit in.

Barnes saw there was something on his bed. When he got closer he recognized it immediately. It was his army rucksack, green and desert camouflage. He'd covered it in patches years ago. The things that Barnes had sewn into it after coming didn’t belong to a soldier who had to be presentable anymore, just a discharged veteran. He hadn’t looked at it in nearly two years. He never travelled outside DC, so he’d stuffed it under his bed and forgotten about it. Someone, a SHIELD agent, probably,  had gone into his apartment and hastily packed up his clothes, and brought them to the bolt-hole.

He ran his hands over the patches, at the things he used to value. Some video game and movie references, some marks of army pride.

And then there it was, hanging from the handle. A one-inch figure hanging by a chain. A cheap piece of plastic he’d paid fifty cents for in the airport terminal when he had come home. Well, he’d paid two dollars. He kept putting quarters into the gumball machine until he got the one he wanted.

He put his knee on the bag and tugged with his right arm until the ball-chain snapped. The little plastic figure of Iron Man was thrown across the room, knocked against the wall, and fell into the shadows of some dark corner.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This work is now explicit. Sorry for the delay in posting this chapter.

His whole body shook when he woke up. His mouth was open and he heard the crackling of his own spittle, the sounds of choking at the back of his throat. But he didn’t scream. He was too surprised to scream.

The pain had been intense. He felt it like it had just happened. Most of his arm blown off, the smell of vaporized blood filling the air. He breathed it in with the smoke and the sulfur as his bones became pieces of flying splinters.

And then the stillness, the humming absence of pain.

It was dark, not even the usual light of streetlamps coming in through the window. Just a moon hanging low in the air, laying a sheet of silver light over everything it touched. He never got that view in his apartment; the building across the way blocked the sky. Then he remembered where he was, and what had happened. It felt like weeks ago. He had to wrap his head around time, reconstructing how it worked. How long ago had it been? It was still night. So did that make it just yesterday?

He sat up in the bed, put his feet on the floor. The room was cold and his feet felt icy when he didn't have any socks.

Coffee. He still didn’t think he could bring himself to eat, but coffee he could get into his body.

He reached out in the dark and found the chair he’d thrown his tank on after he undressed and pulled it on. He stepped out into the hall, which was lit by a dim bulb, the only one still shining in a chandelier hanging above the steps. His feet were bare, but he made noise going down the stairs just as well, the wood creaking and cracking.

He turned into the dining room and heard imusic softly playing. Marrianne Faithfull’s drug-scraped voice echoed from the kitchen, filling the dining room will ghost-sounds. Someone was listening to the Broken English album.

Barnes swung the kitchen door open. Natasha Romanov sat with a bowl of cereal, her feet up on another chair. Her pajamas were black, just a tank top with cotton shorts. She had been staring at the laptop, but looked up at Barnes when he entered.

“Hey,” she said.

“Hey,” he said back.

He was suddenly aware that he was wearing the black boxer briefs with the holes in the legs.

“I made coffee,” Natasha said.

Natasha gestured to the coffee maker. Barnes nodded. He opened a few cabinets before he found a collection of cups.They had probably been bought in bulk. They were the same make of white and ceramic there always was in faceless places. He poured his coffee and spooned the sugar in. One spoonful, then two spoonfuls, then a third, and a forth.

“We have soda, too,” Natasha said.

“I’m trying to give it up,” Barnes said before sitting down and taking a sip. “Too much sugar. What time is it?”

“One in the morning.”

“When did I go to sleep?”

“Eleven forty-five.”

“Huh,” was all Barnes could say.

His surprise at his own stillness of mind after only an hour of sleeping off his worst day in two years felt like it should have been impossible. He took another sip of coffee.

“What are you doing?” Barnes asked.

“Disabling government surveillance satellites.”

“Punk rock.”

“I know,” she said and smiled.

They shared a comfortable silence. She tapped the keys a few times, and then he heard the laptop’s processor whirr. “How are your phantom pains?”

Barnes leveled his gaze at her. He was about to ask how the hell she knew about that, but then he realized: secret government spy agency. She’d probably read every file anybody had ever opened on him.

“Just a little burning,” he responded. “Happens when I’m restless. Something about being fidgety. My left arm is gone, but I’m opening and closing my fist right now.”

Both he and Natasha stared, detached, at the same spot of air where his left hand would have been.

“You try acupuncture?” she asked.

“I don’t like needles,” he said and shrugged.

She took a look at his arm, barely any space not taken up with tattoos and she raised a brow.

“I’ll give you the name of my guy," Natasha said. "You don’t even feel anything with him. He helped me a lot.”

“Thanks,” Bucky said, and nodded.

“Did you like the fair?”

Barnes blinked, cocked his head. She looked back at him, her eyes a little droopy, as if she were bored.

“Are you talking about…?” Barnes was reaching.

“I told him the fair was a lame idea," Natasha said with a shrug and a shake of her head. "A movie would be more fun, or The Smithsonian. There’s a million things to do in DC, but he kept talking about the rides.”

“We weren’t there long enough to ride on anything.”

“Yeah. I know.”

Barnes was powerless to do anything as his eyes widened and blood flushed to his face. Natasha sipped the milk out of her cereal bowl as slow as humanly possible as she stared directly at him. Barnes had to look away, laughing, but barely audible.

“This is stupid,” Barnes muttered.

“What is?” Natasha asked.

“This whole situation. I’m in a secret base for a government spy agency with a guy I went on one date with, along with my therapist, and someone I’m fairly sure I’ve seen on the news. Battle of New York, right?”

“I was there.”

“With the Avengers.”

“Yeah.”

“What does SHIELD have to do with the Avengers?”

“We kind of formed them.”

Barnes picked up his coffee cup just to swirl the drink and stare at it. He had no intention of drinking it.

“That must be like herding cats,” he said.

“Cats aren’t so hard to herd,” she said, putting her cereal bowl down and sitting up. She tapped on the laptop screen. The sound of the music turned down. “You put out a bowl of crème. Now try to get a cat, a lizard, a vampire bat, a whale, and a cow to all want the same thing. Because it won’t be crème for four out of the five.”

Natasha closed the laptop. She stood up and walked past him. She pulled something out of the pantry. It was a box of nutrition bars.

“You know,” Natasha continued. “When I realized you were the Bucky who Steve was talking about dating, I was surprised.”

“Not wholesome enough?” Barnes asked.

“Steve’s not as wholesome as you’d think. It was more the fact that Steve understands people right away. He even got a pretty accurate read on what he and I are to each other. He hasn’t really had instincts that are wildly wrong. I think he even knew there was something dark in Rumlow, he just couldn’t have known what he was.”

“So he got a good read off me or something?”

“It’s not about good. It’s about what you are. That’s what surprised me.”

“What am I?” Barnes said, his mouth stretching into a smug, sarcastic smile.

“I think you’re the guy that’s going to believe in him.”

He furrowed his brow and opened his mouth, his inability to express anything being what fully communicated what he meant.

Natasha pulled out one of the nutrition bars from the box and dropped it on the table next to him.

“Eat that,” she ordered and walked out of the kitchen.

#

It had taken him ten minutes to eat the little blueberry nutrition bar. He would only eat it a bit at a time, having to wait between each bite to make sure that eating wouldn’t make him feel sick. Afterwards, he stared at the shiny, crumb-filled wrapper and tried not to feel pathetic.

He walked back up the stairs to try and get some more sleep. He could only stare at his feet, lifting his head never occurring to him. He wasn’t sure what he was thinking about. He let his mind wander with no fear that it would go too far into territory he couldn’t handle.

When he reached the top of the stairs he heard a door open. Steve was standing in the doorway of his room, wearing a white undershirt and a pair of gray pajama pants. He leaned against the doorframe, his face slightly worn with concern.

“I heard you get up,” Steve said.

“You spying on me, Rogers?” Barnes asked.

“Just a light sleeper. I guess you must be, too.”

“Some habits don’t die. Ever.”

Steve smiled, and his eyes were drooping, heavy. Then he stirred, his shoulders shrugging as he pulled his arms in to cross his chest. Barnes tried to figure out why, and then he saw it again. It was the way Steve had looked at him when he first saw him, and again when Barnes had done his utmost to let his appearance tell him to stay back.  His eyes half-shielded by lashes, the crispness of the blue in his eyes darkened a few shades, and his mouth parting as he breathed in.

Barnes narrowed his eyes as he stared at his mouth. He felt the rush he always did when he was about to do something compulsive. He stamped down on it, like crushing a roach on the sidewalk.

“So I, uh,” Steve stammered. His shoulders shrugged as he started to talk. “I keep thinking about where we should go on our second date.”

Barnes narrowed his eyes, his brows straight and low. When Steve didn’t backtrack and he realized he was being completely serious, he couldn’t help his expression. His eyebrows went straight up as his incredulity consumed his face.

“You think we’re dating now?” Barnes asked.

Steve’s face fell, a little hope snatched from him. It made Barnes feel legitimately low. He closed his eyes, exhaled.

“It’s just that I don’t date," Barnes continued. "The fair thing was a little bit of a fluke. I'm not into the whole going places, being visible, getting to know you kind of scene.”

“Why not?” Steve asked.

“Because that’s not how you get to know someone. You get to know someone once you’ve been through the same fire. Which is why I don’t have someone. I took a risk with you. I actually wanted to do the dumb fair thing. That was two days ago. Now I remember who I am, and who I am isn’t the person who gets to have the apple pie life. You don’t get that when you’re they guy passed around from foster home to foster home and you think the army will be the out, but it isn’t. You don't get to be that when the people you loved exploded in a car with you in it, and some double-date is supposed to come close to what I lost.”

Barnes made himself swallow the rest of the rant. Excuses. When he looked up he was that something glinted in Steve’s eyes. Like he had heard the first strings of a song he’d thought he’d forgotten about.

“You can’t find those people to walk through fire with you by not giving anyone a chance,” Steve told him.

“It’s the other way around," Barnes pointed out. "Who would walk through fire with someone like me? I think the world is shitty and I’ve stopped believing in it. I let everybody know that.”

Barnes heard Natasha’s words ring in his head. _I think you’re the guy that’s going to believe in him_. He snorted out a laugh.

“So what if someone believed in you?” Steve said.

“I’ll believe it when I actually see it,” Barnes said.

He was in no way prepared for what he saw in Steve’s face. Barnes was used to disappointment, but from Steve it felt like a mallet to the chest. When he realized why Steve was disappointed, he reeled back. Because Steve had known him for two days, and he did. Steve believed in him.

“Get away from me,” Barnes whispered and ducked away.

“Bucky—” Steve began, and he grabbed his arm before he could rush past.

Barnes turned on him, his teeth bared like a howler monkey as he came close to his face.

“I swear to _god_ , Rogers. If you call me that one more time—”

“ _Steve_.”

Barnes looked at him right in the eye, the ridiculous earnestness in them.

“What do you want from me?” Barnes asked.

“Nothin’ at all,” Steve said, and it was like he was cutting a string.

Barned pulled his arm out of Steve’s grasp. It came free so easily Barnes wondered how he’d been stopped or stayed still in the first place.

He grabbed Steve’s collar and twisted the fabric of the shirt hard enough that he heard the stitching rip. He tugged Steve with him as he hurried back. Steve’s face was drained of the defiance and it was replaced by a blank wonder.

“You know what you are to me, Rogers?" Barnes said. "You’re the guy I should have just taken home and gotten out of my system.”

The knowledge that he was about to do something stupid came over him, but this time he didn’t stamp it down.

Steve was easy to steer to the bed, even without turning on the lights. Barnes shoved him the rest of the way, impatient at their pace. Steve sat at the edge; just sat there and stared at Barnes. The moonlight was the only thing that made it possible to see, but it was bright through the crisp and cloudless air. Barnes lifted his tank over his head and cast it aside in one motion. He climbed onto Steve, pushed him until he fell on his back.

Before Barnes could lean down, Steve stopped him, held his torso by the ribs. He stared at the fact that there were even more tattoos that he hadn’t seen. They were all black, like the ones down his arm, a collection of symbols that created a strange visual alchemy. Steve drank in the sight of Barnes' torso, and when he looked up at the man hovering above him, his eyes looked nearly black.

Barnes pressed into him with his mouth and his hips. Steve breathed against his lips with an open mouth as they figured out what sort of kissing they did with each other when not rushing and horny in a bathroom stall. Barnes wanted to laugh when he heard the first moan come out of him. It hadn’t taken much to illicit that sound. Barnes had slept with guys more quiet than the grave, and that was always a disappointment. The desperate, breathy sounds that Steve made was getting Barnes harder than just pressing against him was.

Steve’s hands began to wander. He broke away from the kiss.

“Why did you do this one?” Steve asked, his hand running over Bucky’s chest and over the piercing on the left.

Barnes grabbed Steve's hand, guided it to pinch on the bar of metal. The sound that stretched as it came out of his mouth put such a look of surprise on Steve’s face that Barnes cracked a smile, continued to stagger a laugh even as Steve grasped it tighter, forcing the sounds of pleasure out as he rolled his eyes closed.

Barnes felt Steve’s arm come around his waist, and in one fluid movement, he'd lifted Barnes into the air. Barnes stood on his knees to be higher than Steve. He grabbed the back of Steve’s skull as he felt the other man’s mouth wrapping around the piercing. Steve tongued it, bit into it, whatever made Barnes the noisiest.

Barnes pressed his hip against the solidity of Steve’s torso, shivered with each thrust. Steve reached up, grabbing a handful his hair, and tugged it just enough to make Barnes buck and bite his lip.

Steve grabbed him again and threw him down onto his back. Barnes' boxer briefs were yanked off in one motion, and there was another tattoo on his thighs by his hips. It was the only one in color, a plain red star. Steve ran his thumb over it, leaned down and kissed it.

Barnes rolled his eyes, grabbed Steve by his t-shirt to pull him up. He pulled the shirt off completely once he didn't need it for leverage, Steve's hair messing, and Barnes decided he liked Steve as disheveled as possible. He made Steve look at him, grabbed him by the jaw.

“Be rough with me,” Barnes commanded.

“What?” Steve said.

Barnes reached down to grab Steve’s arm, pulled his hand up, and showed him how to wrap his hand around his throat. His mouth curled up, his eyes a dare. Steve’s eyes went wide, and a horror entered them.

“Do it,” Barnes egged on.

“I cannot tell you how much I can’t do that,” Steve said.

“You scared, Rogers?”

“Why are you asking me to do this?”

“I look good covered in purple. Gimme some bruises. I can take it.”

“Not from me.”

The curl in Barnes’ lips faded. He didn’t have the energy to dare him again.

“Is everything about you vanilla?” Barnes said.

Steve’s face was firm in a contempt that masked his embarrassment. Steve grabbed his neck, but not to choke him. They weren’t hands that hurt. They steadied. Barnes felt a moment linger, heavy in sadness, as he realized he almost changed the nature of what they were about to have. Steve put his face into Barnes’ neck, pressed his open mouth into the flesh of his shoulder.

Barnes laughed as Steve started to suck and bite.

“Are we in high school or—ah!” Barnes said.

Barnes was going to tease him about it, but he’d forgotten what this was actually like. Hickies, of all things. He had forgotten this kind of pain and soreness, the way that it mixed with the warm sensations of pleasure. It moved up his neck into his brain and down through his whole body. He smiled at he realized he would get what he wanted, a little bit. He was looking forward to waking up in the morning and looking in the mirror to see his neck and chest covered in purple suck-bruises.

And then Steve pulled away, grabbed Barnes’ hips in a grasp like a vice, and lifted them up. Barnes felt a thrill go through him as Steve put two fingers in his mouth to get them wet. He let Steve open his legs, his hips lifting as he slipped them inside, way more slow and gentle than Barnes thought he needed to be.

And then Steve’s mouth was around his cock and Barnes had to bite his lip to keep from shouting. He fucked into Steve’s fingers as he got sucked off. But when Steve put the fingers of his free hand on his piercing, twisted it and wouldn’t stop, his mouth opened and couldn't shut again. He hated the pathetic noises that came out of him.

By the time he came, whispering a warning that Steve entirely ignored, his legs were shaking. He hadn’t had an orgasm go full-body in so long, he couldn’t remember the last time it felt like this. He’d tried so many ways to feel like that again. Getting knocked around, the weird kinks, the guys that looked like they’d be down for anything. God damn Steve fucking Rogers, who he was trying to get out of his system, like wholesome all-American military guy was just the flavor he was after for the moment.

As he came down, looked down at Steve, who was wiping the corner of his mouth with the back of his hand, Barnes realized how badly he’d fucked up.


	6. Chapter 6

Barnes heard birds singing and saw the golden morning light on the dilapidated walls as his eyes reluctantly opened. He groaned, pulling a face that a person can only pull when they’ve just woken up, hate the fact of it, and taste that they need to brush their teeth. He lifted his head to look at the window and noticed a weight on him.

Steve’s arm was draped across his torso. Barnes frowned as he looked down on it, the way it was not just a heavy slump of muscle thrown over him in the night. He was holding him, had fallen asleep that way. Barnes threw his arm over his face. Steve wasn’t even awake, but there was the chance that somebody could see the way that his face looked: like it was going to break apart.  

He let his arm fall when his face felt normal again; a neutral face that translated to _fuck you, stay back_.

Steve was awake. Wide awake. Barnes knew he’d been asleep, had heard the right kind of breathing. But this guy, bright and aware, just seconds later.

He remembered the time he was asked the worst thing he could find out about a guy. That he was a morning person, was his answer.

“What time is it?” Barnes asked as soon as he saw Steve open his mouth to say something. Barnes didn’t want to hear it, even if it was just “good morning.”

Steve pulled himself out of the bed, grabbed his pajama pants and slipped them on. He skimmed the room, spotted a clock on the windowsill. But when he moved towards it, he stopped and looked at something else. He bent over, picked it up.

He turned around, and the smirk on his face was ridiculous in its ability to look that pleased to have caught something like this.

“Is this yours?” Steve asked.

He was holding the plastic figure of Iron Man between his fingers.

“Yeah, it is. Can I see that?” Barnes said.

Steve sat at the edge of the bed and handed it to him. Barnes took it from him, said “thanks” as he lifted himself out of bed, and then with a soft throw he tossed it across the room. It disappeared behind the table. Steve looked like someone had knocked over his ice cream.

Barned grabbed his rucksack and started to dig around. He was worried that whomever had packed it had forgotten something that he wanted, but as he searched it, pulling out more clothes, he realized it was all his clothes. Every piece of clothing. It was also everything he used to take care of himself—his toothbrush and comb, the Biotene for his piercings, deodorant, shaving gear—it all fit in something he could carry on his back, even two years after Iraq.

“Barnes?”

Steve’s voice, saying that name, the one Barnes had asked he use. He lifted his head, his mouth slack as he stared at Steve. Barnes was aware that was standing naked by the bed, and even though all the clothes he owned were right there, he couldn’t put in the effort of putting them on. His mind was thousands of miles away, his gaze reaching hundreds of yards.

“They had me in a factory,” Barnes replied.

At first he thought Steve was going to say something, ask a question, the way his spine straightened and he moved slightly closer. But then Steve was quiet. He was listening.

“The funny thing is, I remember being bored right before the IED went off," Barnes continued. "I couldn’t even laugh at my squad-mates jokes. They weren’t laughing at their own jokes. It was that boring. And then there was an explosion. I didn’t even get a chance to fight, it was just a bang and then everything was black.

“I woke up and I was alone, and whatever they’d given me made me feel like my bones were lead. They’d already amputated the left arm, and there was just this stump wrapped in gauze. There was no doctor to tell me what had happened, or what I should do. I just freaked out. I screamed. I could hear the rest of the factory, the machines, and I knew they could hear me. No one came, not even to hurt me.”

He stopped, decided he was done. He dug around for underwear and found some, the red and black briefs that were newer than the rest, but still old. He slipped on some jeans, simple and black but with studs on the pockets. Just when he was looking for a shirt, he realized Steve still hadn’t said anything. Barnes let the silence go on, just to see. Steve was still quiet.

“I figured out it was the Ten Rings," Barnes said, and at this point it was like a dam had burst. "I saw their flag when my cell door was open. And then I remembered four years before, when the news hit that Tony Stark had been kidnapped, and everybody was sure he was dead and buried in some cave in Afghanistan. And then he just came back and it was all over the news, with the nasty details of what he’d been through. A couple of months later, and everybody saw Iron Man for the first time, and then there was that press conference and Iron Man was Tony fucking Stark.

“When I was lying on the concrete floor in that factory, I remembered everything I read about that. There was this article in a Vanity Fair I randomly picked up in the library in 2009, and it had laid out everything. That he’d been in a cave and he built that thing out of bomb parts under their very noses and he got _himself_ out.

“There’s a lot of time missing. I don’t remember most of it, I really don’t. But I would sort of just wake up on the ground, trying to figure out how much time had gone by, and I would just think, really believe, that I could do the same thing. I could get out, I could make myself Iron Man, I could be that guy. I could outsmart them and build my own escape.

“And then I woke up in a mobile hospital, and I heard they’d raided the factory to get rid of insurgents. I was found accidentally. They had to tell me that everybody else in my squad was dead, and that was when I realized I hadn’t done a god damn thing for myself.”

“You survived,” Steve said. “Isn’t that what you did for yourself? You got through it.”

Barnes shrugged and the corners of his lips turned down, like he’d just explained something mundane and a bit embarrassing.

“How long you been carrying that thing?” Steve asked.

“Two years, technically," Barnes said. "But that first month back in the States I had it all the time. Good luck charm kind of a thing.”

“So why do you want to throw it across the room now?”

“Because it’s stupid to have heroes. I thought it would make me stronger. It didn’t. I just kept fucking up. I couldn’t do anything, stayed in the same apartment for two years. No matter how much I tried to take a hold of something, nothing worked. And then I put it away.”

“When?”

“About a year ago. I threw this bag under the bed,” he said, picked up the rucksack a bit while he burrowed for a shirt. “I haven’t looked at it since.”

“The Mandarin attacks were a year ago,” Steve observed.

“And the Mandarin was an actor in a costume.”

“You’re not a big fan of costumes.”

“Least of all star-spangled ones.”

When he saw how crestfallen Steve was, he couldn’t help the smug smile on his face.

“I’m sorry, is Captain America your favorite? But this is Shield. You probably work with him.”

“That’s not how I would put it.”

“Well, next time you see him, ask him something for me. How come he’s the only Avenger that can’t show his face?”

Steve looked away and his chest rose in a heavy sigh.

“Shield is complicated,” Steve says. “It’s not always so black and white. Or red, white, and blue, for that matter.”

Barnes had no idea what he meant by that and raised his brows. Steve’s smile was sad as he gathered his white shirt from the floor and slipped it on.

“You ever think maybe the reason you don’t need heroes anymore is because you can stand on your own now?” Steve asked.

Barnes put all his effort into making his face blank as he stared directly at Steve, who just shrugged at the restrained anger.

“You should tell Sam all the things you just told me,” he continued. “He can maybe talk you through figuring out why you remember Rumlow.”

Steve went to leave, was hovering in the open door. He turned and there was a slight smile on his face.

“You said you don’t date, but I thought I’d still ask,” he said. “After this is over, let’s go someplace, do something. You pick this time.”

An idea actually went through Barnes’ head. He smirked bitterly at his own stupidity.

“How about ‘we’ll see,’” Barnes said.

 _You idiot_ , he heard himself scream in the back of his head _._

“That’s a good answer,” Steve said, closing the door behind him.

#

Barnes went into the bathroom, his olive shirt thrown over his shoulder, and a shaver and his toothbrush in his hand. As he washed up, he looked at himself in the dilapidated, spotty mirror. He touched the suck-bruises that ran up his neck and on his chest, delicate, with the edge of his fingers. He did like the way it looked on his skin, purple against flesh that was paler than usual. He smiled and touched his lips with his tongue.

Then he looked at himself better. His hair was greasy and uncombed and his stubble was two days old. But most of all, he looked tired.

He had the thought of going back to bed, not even brushing his teeth. The idea of having to do anything like shave, to get the razor wet and put the cream on and then the actual shaving, the idea that he might nick himself and his face would burn and he’d have to wipe the excess off and--

He leaned over the sink, his hands against the porcelain, breathed. He thought he was going to collapse.

And then his knees worked again and he straightened up. His shoulders were back. He stood the way he had before the bomb and the hospitals and the physical therapy, and the group therapy. His head was up, the way his superiors hated. Because it was technically the correct way to stand, but he still looked like a swaggering asshole to everybody else. And it was right there in the mirror.

Him. Standing.

#

Natasha and Sam were in what had once been the living room. Barnes hadn’t been in there yet, since he had only really been interested in the kitchen or the bedroom. When he walked in, showered and shaved, his shoulders actually squared, their conversation ended.

The room was thick with server towers and flat, clear screens. The room was tall, and some of the instrumentation went through the ceiling. All the wires that were running through the house were leading into there. 

“Morning,” Sam said.

The look on Sam’s face was a little annoyed, but mostly congratulatory. Barnes knew exactly why. He and Steve had not been quiet.

“What’s that?” Barnes asked.

There was a large black and silver object that Sam and Natasha had been talking over.

“Hydra’s calling in their assets,” Natasha said. “So are we.”

Steve walked in, rubbing his wet hair with a towel. He had showered and cleaned up, too. He smiled down at Barnes, a little bashful, and Barnes made himself keep his face neutral.

“Any news?” Steve asked Natasha.

“Most of our other Shield hubs have gone quiet,” Natasha said.

She pulled up a map of the east coast.There was a massive grid spanning the length of most of the major east coast cities. She pushed the zoom in and they were concentrated in a radius of DC, down to Delaware and Virginia and up to New York. Numbered dots appeared, a few in each state. Ten of them were red, two of them were blue.

“That many?” Steve asked, referring to the red dots.

“I put feelers out. Every cell phone and camera in the vicinity of these bases are being monitored. If we get voice recognition from any Shield agents or hostiles in the area, we’ll know about it.”

“You’re hacking into the lives of private people to get your dirt?" Barnes asked. "You didn’t tell me this was the kind of agency you work for.”

“I’m not crazy about it, either,” Steve said, and Barnes was surprised to see that their expressions of discomfort and disapproval matched.

“Then why do you do it?” Barnes asked.

“Remember our first conversation?” Steve reminded him.

Barnes did. Steve had talked about getting out, about his options. Barnes wondered how much choice he had in leaving a spy organization that could use other people’s phones to listen to you, an organization with their own array of satellites. He wondered whether or not anyone would believe a person who claimed that this secret organization was both responsible for a superhero team, and was watching people around the globe.

Then he wondered how a guy like Steve Rogers had gotten into this business in the first place.

“Well I’ll be sure to feel really, really bad about it when we intercept a transmission that saves our lives,” Natasha said, her voice flat and low.

There was a very long pause as everybody seemed to be waiting for someone else. There were things not being said in the room full of national secrets;the strain between Natasha and Steve and their butting philosophies; things between Steve and Barnes that were nobody’s business; and then there was the entire reason that Barnes had come downstairs in the first place.

Barnes exhaled through his nose, steadied.

“Sam,” Barnes said. “I’m ready to have that conversation we’ve been avoiding.”

Sam nodded once, sober. He patted the large black object. When Natasha pulled it up to put it away, Barnes saw that it was a pack of some kind, with heavy paratrooper straps.

“I’m glad you’re ready,” Sam said to him as they walked out of the room together.

“Yeah, well,” Barnes said, his hand waving in a vague gesture referring to the entire house. “We’ve got Nazis on our asses, we’re in the middle of intervening against a terror attack, and I think Natasha might be a superhero or something. I should probably get this out of the way and do something useful.”

“Don’t think about being useful,” Sam said. “Think about getting better.”


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I want to take a second to thank everybody so far who had commented on this fic. The feedback has really kept me going, and you've all put a smile on my face during a tough time.

Barnes was certain that the talk would take as much time as it had taken to tell Steve, and that would be it. Three hours later, he and Sam were in the kitchen, because an unexpected side-effect of emptying himself of all that crap was that he would be ravenous. The smell of flour, sugar, and vanilla wafted through the air, made the place smell less like dry wood and more like a place people occupied.

“I can’t believe you bake,” Barnes said.

“Really?” Sam said as he pulled the tea cakes out of the oven.

“Not really.”

Barnes went to grab one of them and Sam batted his hand away with an oven mitt. Barnes smiled and went back to his sandwich. He’d already had one other sandwich, a bag of chips, and three pickles. But those were just to hold him over until he could fully satisfy his sweet-tooth.

“I want another piercing,” Barnes said. “Just like, one. I wanna know what I look like with a septum.”

“This is where your mind goes at a time like this?”

“I keep waiting for you to tell me to stop.”

“What do you mean?”

Barnes chuckled, finished chewing the bite he had just taken.

“Every time I get something done, I expect you to tell me to stop doing this shit. I thought you were gonna lose it when I split my tongue. Must be driving you crazy having to be professional about it.”

“Really?” Sam said, smiled and sat down as he let the tea cakes cool. “That’s funny. Because every time you get new ink, or do some weird shit to yourself, you know what goes through my head? I’m glad.”

Barnes blinked, let what he’d said process, see if he could tell what Sam had meant. When he looked down at Sam he cocked his head to ask the question.

“Well,” Sam continued. “When you get something done, you’re happier. You look better, you stand straighter. If it were just temporary, yeah, I’d be worried. But I think it’s your process.”

“My process?”

“To keep from disassociating, to take back your body. The first time I met you, you didn’t look like you were there half the time. You were a little more there the first time you pulled down your underwear—quick way to get to know me, I guess—and there was that little tattoo on your hip. I see you owning it more every time you do some more of this weirdness. Don’t ask me to understand it, but I get it. I really do.”

“I just thought they looked cool.”

“Is that so?”

Barnes smiled. Of course that wasn’t only it. That thrill of new ink, or new mods, it was something beyond just liking the look. He’d just never been able to put his finger on it. He hadn’t thought of himself as better. He thought he’d stayed the same, broken and useless the whole time. Standing on his own.

The kitchen door swung open and Natasha was standing in the door.

“Guys, we need you… Ooh,” she said right before diving for the cakes.

Sam made a warning sound that Natasha barely heeded and the three of them exited the kitchen. Steve was waiting for them amongst the computers.

“Was somebody baking?” Steve asked as they entered.

“They’re not cool yet, you can’t have any,” Sam said.

“We’ve got trouble,” Natasha said. “The cakes will have to wait.”

Steve looked genuinely disappointed and it took a lot of effort for Barnes not to laugh.

One of the red dots was pulsing; a warning signal. Natasha pulled up a window and an audio recording began to play.

“ _Our assets are almost in play. We have one more target. Mobilize the Storm_.”

“What does that mean?” Barnes asked.

“There’s an assassination target,” Sam guessed. “Do we know who it is?”

“Not yet,” Natasha confirmed. “Whoever it is, we and one other Shield base know about it. The other went dark.”

“You lost another one?” Barnes asked.

“We gotta mobilize,” Steve said. There was something deeper in his voice. The professional soldier was there, and Barnes had to remind himself that they were all like that underneath. Men like Steve Rogers were ready to transform when the situation called for it.

“What can I do?” Barnes asked.

All three of them turned to look at him. He saw it in their faces. They hadn’t planned that Barnes would volunteer to help, or that he could help.

“You’re here to lay low,” Steve reminded him.

“Yeah, and to feed you information,” Barnes snapped. “Now you know what I remember about Crossbones, about the fact that they never asked me questions when they were doing whatever they were doing to me, you’re going to just let me stew here, aren’t you?”

 “Let us do the work,” Steve said. “You’ve given more than enough.”

“But not everything.”

“There are other things you can do.”

“What? Watch little dots on a monitor? I’m not going to do that. I was a sniper in Iraq. Put me on a roof.”

“Barnes,” Natasha interjected.

“I know what it feels like,” Steve said. “To want to do so much, but no one will let you. I’ll get you out there, I promise. Just not right now.”

“That’s some talk from someone like you,” Barnes said, gesturing to Steve’s body. Then an expression crossed Steve’s face, and Barnes couldn’t quite account for it.

“Natasha—,” Steve began, turned to her, like he was about to suggest something.

“No, Steve. I’m staying with you,” Natasha said as she turned to Barnes. “We’ll make quick work of those cakes.”

Natasha brought him over to a locker with a retinal scanner. He was scanned and given access. There was a small weapons locker with pistols and rifles, but only a few. He familiarized himself with their setup, but already knew where the strategic points were in the house and on the grounds. He still kept that habit, looking for outs and vulnerabilities, even if he were just going to the grocery store. Then, as Sam and Steve got prepared to leave, gathering gear, she showed him how to access the Shield databases. Barnes made a mental note to take advantage of that access if Natasha ever left him alone with the computers.

#

Steve was hovering by the door, as nervous as a kid who’d been left behind by his parents. Their SUV was packed, Natasha setting up secure lines of communication and making sure Sam had his black pack, whatever that was. But he smiled when Barnes came up to him, cocked his head to the side and peered at him through narrowed eyes.

“So, back to DC,” Barnes said. “That’s where the high-priority target is?”

“That’s where the transmission came from,” Steve confirmed. “It’s the best lead we’ve had so far.”

“You ever think it might be a trap?”

“I’m certain it is.”

“Then why go?”

“You know where I learn the most information? Inside a trap.”

Barnes made his face neutral, even amused. He admired the way that Steve was doing the absolute most to get into trouble. But there was still that pang of worry.

“This is real stupid, Rogers,” Barnes said.

“Yeah, well, I just think it’s something that’s catching,” Rogers said.

Barnes laughed through his nose.

“You know, you don’t deserve this. C’mere.”

He pulled Steve down into a kiss, holding the other man gently by the jaw. It was supposed to be a way to say goodbye and good luck, nothing special. But Steve pulled him close, nearly breathed him in. Not out of his system after all.

#

Barnes remembered the boredom of waiting. He and Natasha played board games with some pieces missing and substituted those missing pieces with parts from the other games while they stuffed themselves on Sam’s tea cakes. The radio silence from Steve and Sam had persisted for an hour since they arrived in DC, and there was little they could do. So a mixture of Risk and Monopoly was invented. Both of them cheated constantly, which was difficult to do in a game with no rules, but they managed it.

So when the buzzing of a transmission came in, there was a rush of energy into the house. Natasha opened the comm and Sam’s voice came in.

“Things went south,” Sam said.

“What’s happened?” Natasha asked.

“It was a trap, but not the one we expected. I got away, but they have him.”

Barnes felt his stomach drop and the taste of copper bled into the back of his throat.

Sam laid out the entire story—how they had fed them the information, that the high-priority target was Rogers. Barnes tried to figure out why, of all the people in the world to target, why Rogers? And why not just kill him? Why take him captive?

Barnes hated secrets. When Natasha and Sam made plans to meet, he pulled her close to him, asked her why it was Steve that was caught. Not killed, but kept.

Natasha looked down at where he was grasping her arm and when she rose her head to stare him down, her scowl was deep.

“I have to protect our secrets,” Natasha said. “I’m not sure how many we have anymore. No offense Barnes, but you don’t exactly have the clearance.”

“Let me do something,” Barnes said. “If you leave me here while you go all commando into a den of literal Nazis…”

“Do _you_ have a plan to infiltrate an organization that we didn’t even know still existed until a few days ago?”

“As a matter of fact, I do.”

#

The light of the punk bar’s sign colored the brick of the alleyway red, the neon of the blue light of the closed restaurant next door fusing the two colors into a purple, like blood and bursting veins turning into a bruise. Barnes walked down the alley and disappeared into the low light, the left arm of his leather, studded jacket folded over and pinned to his chest. He narrowed his lined eyes as he strutted down to where he knew they usually hung out, waiting for teenagers that didn’t know better than to take a right out of this alley.

He looked up, saw the figure on the roof. Natasha was monitoring, gave a signal, giving Barnes the go-ahead. They had agreed not to use the ear pieces. It would be the first thing Hydra would look for, and it would give him away.

He saw them, four of the puffy-jacketed, bald Nazi shitheads that were usually here on weekends. This would be the easiest part.

He reached down, picked up a piece of garbage—a Coke can left on the concrete—and tossed it at them. It hit one of them on the skull with a _clink_ and they all turned to glare at him.

“Nazi punks fuck off!” Barnes screamed.

They all descended on him and right before they pounced, Barnes stuck out his forked tongue before leaping at them. He had to make it look real, like he was there to fight. He still knew how to throw down even with one arm. He’d never lost his training, either from the army or from getting into professional fighting before he enlisted. But at a certain point, they had to be winning.

He went limp as they all kicked him, pounded on him.

“So trying to snatch me from the hospital wasn’t enough?” Barnes said to their ringleader.

There was a recognition in his eyes and when Barnes saw it he grinned, his teeth red with his own blood.

“ _Fuck Hydra_ ,” Barnes said and spat in his face.

One more punch and a black sky filled with stars was the last thing he saw.

#

His eyes opened in a dark room. The sounds of machines were familiar enough that he was back in Iraq, felt the heat radiating off the aluminum ceiling and radiating through his cell.

_Be here. Be where you are_.

It wasn’t hot at all. It was cold, like metal exposed to cold air. He blinked and focused. Men in lab coats, and there in the back of the room—Crossbones. Or Rumlow. Whatever he was calling himself. That was what they had called him in Iraq, secret codes to keep POWs from learning names.

He heard a whirring and felt a needle in his veins.

His entire body seized up like it had been electrocuted and someone forced something in his mouth. He clamped down on it. A mouthguard.

He came in and out of consciousness, would feel different every time. Like he was resisting unconsciousness better and better.

“We were so inspired,” he heard Rumlow in the room. “What you did to your own arm. We thought we’d give you a gift.”

The whirring continued as Barnes passed out again.

Woke up.

Wide awake.

He was strapped down, and a mask was over his face. It wasn’t oxygen; there was some kind of smell, and he tasted the drugs in the vapor. When he scanned the room with eyes wide and wild, he saw that there were two doctors in the room, and one gunman at the door.

He heard another machine. It was familiar, terrible. His body became rigid as it anticipated pain. He didn’t remember most of his captivity, but in that moment he remembered this. And he remembered the emptiness afterwards.

He looked up, saw the machine lowering over his head.

He remembered why he was here. Steve had to be in this base.

_If they use that on me, I’ll forget why I’m here_ , he realized.

Forgetting. He’d forgotten the forgetting. It wasn’t post-traumatic stress that had made him block out what had happened in that factory, the reason he hadn’t been able to do anything for himself as he laid on that concrete floor. It was Hydra.

It didn’t matter that forcing himself out of straps was impossible. He pulled himself forward anyway, desperate to get away.

He barely knew what to do with himself when, with a massive yell, he sat up and the straps flew off.

It had been two years, but he still had that instinct, to grab at something with his left hand. As if he’d forgotten he was an amputee, he went for the doctor on his left, was about to chastise himself for making the worst possible first move.

An arm was around that doctor’s throat, chrome, massive. Not his. But familiar. It was just like the one he had made for himself. But it wasn’t painted with spray paint and drawn on in Sharpie. This was real.

_We were so inspired_.

He threw the doctor and he flew across the room, impossibly far. Barnes barely had the time to process that he had done it when the man with the gun came forward.

He grabbed the other doctor, threw him at the guard. They smashed into each other. Gunfire sprayed as the guard squeezed the trigger when he fell. Barnes jumped off the table, ran over to both of them; he only had to punch them both once before they fell limp. Without someone to keep the machine going, the sound of whirring and crackling electricity died down. Barnes turned to watch the machine sputter and die, shuddering like a runner who’d pushed himself too far before it shut itself off.

The silence of the room surrounded him as heavily as if he were surrounded by cotton. He looked down at his body. It wasn’t recognizable as his. Under a layer of tattoos, his muscles were different. They were huge, strong, defined. And the metal arm. He flexed his fist open and closed, the way his phantom limb felt. The arm responded, opening and closing.

_Don’t freak out don’t freak out don’t—_

Barnes couldn’t help the scream that tore out of his throat.


	8. Chapter 8

Barnes reached into the back of his mouth. There was the sound of a snap and the device came free. It was a little, round piece of metal.

“ _Just find a computer, any computer you can get to_ ,” Natasha said in his head.

There was one in the room, the one that had been controlling the machine, and he put the tiny device on the side of it. It made a tiny beep, expanded and stuck to the tower.

As the device hacked into the computer he heard the computer processing, trying to resist. Barnes leaned against the table it was on. He was covered in a layer of sweat that was beginning to cool and dry. Standing just in his underwear, he began to realize how cold the room was. He breathed through the feeling of his body being alive with adrenaline and drugs. He was sure he was going to hyperventilate as he heard the thing attached to him whir. The armor it was made of was moving, slats going up and down like it was trying to decide what shape it wanted to take.

He wanted to grab it, tear it off. The only thing stopping him was that he didn’t know what that would do. He shuddered instead, his skin crawling with each move of the armor.

The design of the screen changed. A window appeared, looked more like the monitors in the Shield computers. Natasha’s face appeared, wearing a headset. He could see himself, the way he looked, on a smaller square. She could see just his face, according to the window.

“I’m in,” Barnes said, his voice choking on pain.

“There you are. I was getting worried,” she said. “Are you okay?”

“How long have I been gone?”

“Three hours. Cutting it a little thin.”

“ _What_?”

Barnes looked down at himself. Confusion sat heavy on his face. Three hours. What had they done to him in just that amount of time? Or had it started two years ago?

“ _Barnes_ ,” Natasha said, snapping him back to attention.

“Is the device working?” Barnes asked.

“I’m in. Hydra’s firewalls aren’t that great once you’re actually connected to their internal system. You’re in an old hotel. It’s been abandoned for a few years now. I’m pulling up the layout.”

“Where are they keeping Steve?”

“Found him,” Natasha said after a pause.

Barnes pulled the map up and looked at it full-screen. He saw the layout of his floor, the top floor above him, and he memorized the path to the room that was highlighted. Like riding a bike.

“I’m going to get him,” Barnes said.

“We’re sending Sam in. Get to the roof and wait for extraction.”

Barnes heard noise. Sounds coming from the hall. His reaction was sharp and his eyes darted.

“What is it?”

“I may have made a bit of noise.”

“Barnes, don’t engage, don’t go looking—“

Barnes swiped the chat window closed. He rushed over to the fallen guard. He stole the black pants and boots, both of which were snug. He only had time to slip on the bullet-proof vest and grab the gun.

He opened the door to look out. The light was coming in through the windows at the end of the hall. It was still the middle of the night, so spot-lamps were lighting up the hall. It looked like the place was in the middle of renovations. There weren’t even walls in some places, just structural framing. He heard more of the machines, the same crackling and whirring. Then a few yowls, muffled by mouthguards.

There were others.

Barnes looked down the hall and then back up. He lead with his muzzle and stalked down the hall. He hadn’t had a left arm in two years but he still knew how to use it to hold a gun. He tried not to think about how his body was humming, or about this thing attached to him, this metal arm that looked way, way too much like the plastic one he had painted.

Then a woman stepped out into the hall. She was alone, but her movements were smooth and nearly silent. She turned, looked directly at him.

He knew her. Isabelle, from the VA. She was in Sam’s group, the one with two girls at home. But she was changed. She hadn’t had that much bulk to her before, had let her muscles fade away as she got further into civilian life. But she looked like she had been training for years, all body fat gone. But when she looked at him, he saw no recognition in her eyes.

He said her name, but there was no reaction.

He backed away a step, but she charged. She was fast, but Barnes blocked her with the rifle. She grabbed the gun, shoved him with it until Barnes fell backwards and she mounted him.

She was punching him. He could tell she was strong, but he knew it wasn’t hurting him, not breaking the skin or cracking bone. He grabbed her with his arm and it whirred when he threw her against the wall.

“Wait. _Wait_ ,” he said, but she didn’t listen.

He was shoved against the wall and she was close to him, her teeth bared and close to his skin like she meant to bite him.

“Isabelle,” he said. “Listen to me. Please.”

She grabbed his throat, but he could still talk.

“What about Amanda and Mary?”

There was a recognition in her eyes and it was like watching glass crash apart.

Barnes exhaled as her hand unclenched. He really didn’t think that was going to work. She was reeling, her eyes shaking with tears.

“Can you get out of here?” Barnes asked.

There was a moment when he thought she would attack him again. She was looking down and away, and her sorrow seemed to stretch on forever. She looked down at her own hands. Then she looked up at him, her eyes a little clearer.

“Where am I?” she asked.

“You’re in DC, so that’s good,” Barnes said. “Can you do something for me, Isabelle?”

There was a spark in her eyes, a recognition of her own name. It wasn’t complete, hadn’t quite snapped into place.

“Isabelle…can you get out? Can you get anybody else out with you?”

The third time, saying the name, and recognition was there, like someone had rung a bell.

“I know where the guards are,” she said.

“As many people as you can.”

Isabelle shook, like she was going to come apart at the edges, but then she looked like she was turning into steel. Her face was fierce and furious. She went down the fire exit like a shot.

Barnes went up the hall, turned the corner on the path he knew led to Steve.

Men in black uniforms holding rifles were running down the hall. They had come for him. Barnes knew this for sure because they opened fire as soon as they saw him. Barnes had leapt aside just in time; handy to not have a wall in your way when you dive into a room through half-demolished refurbishing.

The gunfire continued as he backed into a corner. It was suppression fire until they could round on him.

When Barnes looked back, he saw another hole in the wall, through which he could see an empty elevator shaft. And elevator shaft with a string of cables still intact, stretching to the top floor.

He leapt through the hole and grabbed the pulley wires. He couldn’t believe he was pulling himself up them, and at the pace he was going at. Even when he was in peak condition, he hated the rope climbing part of training and staying fit the least. But this was easy, barely taxed him. He reached the top floor, and the elevator doors made a screeching, wrenching noise as he pulled them open. He looked down just in time to see two guns pointing at him. The spray of bullets barely missed him as he dived into the hallway, his gun getting stuck in the doors and dropping when he had to let it go.

He stumbled up, collapsed against the wall. He held the metal arm as the armor moved more, whirred as though its gears were stuck. Then it was still. He looked down at it, thought about rotating it, and it did just that. The arm was precise in its movements, obeying him. Barnes realized it must have been calibrating, and it had finally figured out what Barnes wanted it to do.

It didn’t change the fact that he felt like he’d been taken over, but it would at least be useful.

He looked around the hall and got his bearings by thinking of the schematics he had seen on the computer screen. He just had to go down to the end of the hall and there was a large suite on the right.

The suite had large double-doors, the white of the paint sanded down and chunks of the door splintered. Barnes put his ear to the door. He couldn’t hear people, just more machines. There was a crackling, then more humming, and bubbling water.

Barnes opened the door soundlessly and peered inside. He crouched as he pulled himself inside, closing the door behind him and gritting his teeth at the sound of a tiny click. It was just the door latching, but it seemed too loud in the quiet room.

The suite was huge, and all the walls that would have separated the community area and the bedroom had been knocked down. There was a huge circle and a blue energy crackled and hummed in a dome over it. Barnes looked at the wall of windows that took up the north wall, and he saw that there were search-lights across the street, illuminating a cloudy, rainy sky.

Next to the circle of electricity was a large, tall, cylindrical tank. There was something—no, someone—inside. As Barnes crept forward he saw something propped up on the wall. His heart stopped when he saw it. Round and metal, painted red, white, and blue and with a star in the center. When Barnes picked it up, felt the heft of the metal, and heard the way the metal sang when he flipped it over, he realized this was not a replica.

Barnes stood up, came to the tank, saw the uniform first. It was the blue one, with the white star across the chest. When the shadows receded and he got a better look at the top of the tank, he felt his heart stop.

“You star-spangled son of a bitch,” Barnes muttered.

Steve’s eyes were closed, and half of his mouth was covered in some kind of breathing apparatus, but it couldn’t be anyone else. That face, that the map had had him kept up here. High-priority target. How long did they think they could keep this from him?

He heard a creak and without thinking about it, he used the shield to cover himself the moment a spray of four bullets came at him.

When he lowered the shield to peek over the top he saw him. Crossbones pointing a gun at him, a gun which couldn’t be empty already.

Rumlow smiled.

“I see they didn’t get quite around to the wipe,” he said.

“What are you doing to these people?” Barnes asked. “What are you doing to Steve?”

Rumlow looked up at the tank, smiled in a way that made Barnes feel nauseated.

“Some reigns end so new ones can rise. Then again, some end so that the older ways can come back. The rise of Hydra needs its own symbol.”

Rumlow gestured to Steve again, and Barnes saw it. The tube connected to a vein in his throat. The liquid going through the tube could only be his blood.

“What the hell?” Barnes said.

“This would have been impossible before. The vials of Captain Roger’s serum-infused blood wasn’t viable for cloning once the technology became available, but Zola made the machine anyway.”

Barnes furrowed his brow, having no idea what or who he was talking about, but Rumlow seemed to be enjoying himself anyway. But one thing he could tell was going on—the talk of blood and cloning. They were going to make a copy of Steve.

“It’s the only form worthy of housing him,” Rumlow said.

“Him?” Barnes said.

“Cut off one head—“

“Ok, you know what?”

Barnes threw the shield and it hit Rumlow on the collar. Rumlow fell over with a shout as Barnes heard the sound of breaking bone. The shield bounced back, Barnes barely able to catch it as it flew fast and wild. But he did and he swung it at the glass of the tank. It shattered and a wave of water poured out, soaking Barnes. But he didn’t care about the wet or the broken glass. He opened his arms to catch Steve.

Barnes carefully laid Steve on the ground and pulled the large needle out of Steve’s neck. Then he pulled the face-mask off and found it had a tube going down his throat. He pulled it out quickly, but carefully. Half-way into getting it out, Steve’s eyes fluttered open and he choked, pulled the mask off himself. He sat up, gagging and coughing before the fit subsided.

Steve blinked rapidly as he looked around the room, tried to figure out where he was. And then he looked over to Barnes.

“Bucky?” Steve said. Then he looked down, saw it. “Is that…is that a metal arm?”

“You want _me_ to explain myself?” Barnes said, gesturing to the uniform, the anger on his face seething through his need to joke about it.

“Oh.”

“Yeah. We’re going to have some words.”

“I figured. How’d you get here?”

“Same way you did. Found some Hydra skinheads and advertised who I am.”

“So the getting captured on purpose thing—how’s that working out for ya?”

“You had the same idea, moron.”

They saw Rumlow rise. Barnes helped Steve to stand, handing him the shield. They stared at him as they dripped onto the already soaked carpet.

“You’re too late,” Rumlow said, clutching his collarbone, which was likely broken. “It’s already started.”

They were powerless to watch as the blue energy began to increase in its humming intensity. Something began to form, a glob of matter that moved in shapes like oil in water. Barnes blanched as he realized it wasn’t just any matter. It was blood. Steve’s blood.

The shape grew and grew, and started to take form. Legs, arms, a head. A skull. A red skull, screaming as it formed and Barnes realized it was feeling pain.

Steve’s face was white with horror and then Barnes realized what he was looking at.

“No way,” Barnes muttered.

It was impossible. The Red Skull was a cartoon character. Something they put in comics so Captain America could have somebody else to punch besides Hitler. He wasn’t real, couldn’t be. They would have put a red-faced super-Nazi in the history books for sure.

“He will have the form that should have rightfully been his,” Rumlow said. “He will don the uniform and the people will gather. The world will turn on Captain America as he kills brainwashed soldiers and creates an atmosphere of terror. Then they will come to Hydra, and we will show them the way.”

“Whatever he’s promised you,” Steve began. “It’s a lie.”

“Pain doesn’t lie. And I am a disciple of pain. Pain will give us order, give us purpose and Schmidt will show us the way. Pierce has already seen to paving the way for him.”

The Red Skull continued to scream as his body came together piece by piece, the blue energy around him infusing him with power.

“Captain,” Rumlow said. “Say goodbye to your—“

None of them heard the sound of jets until it was right by them. Barnes and Steve recoiled as a massive, black form appeared at the wall of windows and crashed through them. The figure with the huge wings, collected behind him as he dived, was headed right for Rumlow. He barreled into him hard enough that Rumlow was forced into the machine when he was kicked with the force of the dive.

Sam was standing there, and he was wearing a pair of huge, mechanical wings that retracted into the pack that Barnes had seen in the Shield base. His eyes were covered by goggles, but his face was expressive all the same.

“Sorry, did I interrupt a bad guy moment?” Sam said as he turned to Steve.

“A little bit but…,” Steve said as he shrugged.

“You were supposed to wait on the roof,” Sam said pointing to Barnes. Then he pointed to the chrome arm holding Steve up. “Wait. Bucky? What is that?”

“I’ll tell you when we’re on the ground,” Barnes said.

The energy of the machine snapped like static in winter and they all turned to look at it. Whatever process was interrupted was going wrong. And it looked like it was going the worst it could go.

The forms of Rumlow and Red Skull began to phase through each other, and both their screams were the stuff of nightmares. Pieces of Rumlow became pieces of Red Skull, colors came together, and the energy sparked, was becoming unstable.

“Oh shit,” Sam said as they all realized what was happening.

They all dived out of the window the moment before the machine exploded, sending a blue shock wave through the night air. Barnes had not so much jumped as he was caught by Steve as he dived. They twisted in the air and a second later he felt them hit something and bounce, and the sound of breaking and bending metal with shattering glass echoed through the night.

Barnes hadn’t noticed that he’d squeezed his eyes shut until he opened them. He looked down at Steve, who had his arm around him. They were both curled up and he realized that they were on the shield.

“Hi,” Barnes said when he looked into Steve’s clear, blue eyes.

“Hi,” Steve said back.

Steve smiled. They had just fallen out of an eight-story building and onto a car and were somehow perfectly fine, but Steve looked more natural and comfortable than he had at any other time Barnes had known him. Getting rid of secrets will do that to a guy.

They laid in the wreckage of the car they had fallen on and Barnes had the thought that, as the rain pattered against the metal of the car and the shield, that this would be a good time to kiss him.

Then the sound of a crowd, and the electronic noise of camera shutters.

They both looked back and saw them, the crowd. Barnes stood first, glass falling off him. He thought about what he must look like. A scowling, tattooed punk with a big, metal arm standing over Captain America crumpled into a dent in a car. The crowd took one look at him, and they began to recoil. The way Barnes felt when they looked at him, he might as well have been naked.

He reached down with his metal arm. Steve took the proffered hand and he pulled him up as they both crawled off the destroyed car.

The crowd might have recoiled from Barnes, but several people began to gather around Steve. A few people had their cell phones out, but there were news cameras, too. The reporters had come out from under the protective awning they had been standing under. Barnes looked past them, saw that they were in front of a conference center. He recognized a few politicians standing in tuxedos with their wives. Some kind of charity event.

There was a woman in a small black dress and a shawl. She had gotten to him first, her camera-man behind her. As the heavy rain began to drop on her, she shivered. Steve’s first instinct was to raise his shield above her to protect her from the rain.

Something snapped into place in Barnes’ head. He stared at Steve as he fully saw him. Saw that he was bigger than that uniform, that he was different from what he thought. But there was still a stirring of something in his belly, making him sick with worry.

“Captain America,” the woman said, her voice rising over the din of reporters trying to get the first question. “Can you tell us what’s just happened?”

“It’s better that you get inside,” Steve said. “There’s a situation in the building across the street.”

“We’ve never seen your face before. Can you tell us your name?”

“Steven G. Rogers,” he said after relief washed over his face.

“When did you decide to take on the mantle of Captain America?”

“1943.”


	9. Chapter 9

Barnes knew there was one other Shield base still active, and when they showed up and extracted the other soldiers, they saw that it was done in less than ten minutes. Some of Hydra had gotten away, but not with any of the soldiers they’d captured for Winter Storm. It helped that Isabelle had gotten part of the work done before a woman named Maria Hill had come in with a team. They were being taken to a secure facility, but Barnes didn’t know where.

He wondered about Isabelle, wanted to know if she would be okay. She’d been doing well, leaving her traumas behind. He hadn’t even known she’d been a POW like him. Maybe if he’d actually talked to people in group…

But travelling in the back of the black van with his feet on the seat in front of him, his mind went to the tablet he had been handed. He kept swiping the screen to look at the different archival photographs of Steve.

That he was Captain America and all that came with it—super-strength, highly specialized training, part of the Avengers—that was somehow easy to digest. The being born in 1918 and frozen in ice for seventy years, that was a bit weirder. When Steve had said he was the original Cap from the forties he thought about time travel, immortality, being kept in stasis. That last one wasn’t far off. But he thought maybe in a machine, not literally frozen in an ice cube in the midst of the Arctic Circle.

But there was Steve, as he was when he was a five-foot four-inch and ninety-five pound little guy in an ill-fitting uniform. That was definitely Steve’s face, peering out in scans of cracking photographs. In some pictures he was sweating as he was barely completing his training, standing at attention in a too-large helmet that made him look like a child playing soldier with his dad’s things.

“Jesus,” Barnes said and looked at a comparison photo between Steve with his shirt off, both before and after the serum.

“Yeah, I know,” Steve said. “I was a little small.”

“You were cute, though.”

Steve broke out into a smile. His face was incredulous as he laughed.

“Weren’t a lot of people who thought that,” Steve said.

“Well, they were dumbasses,” Barnes said. “I would have liked to have known this kid.”

“Maybe I would have gotten beat up a little less.”

“If I’d been there? Lots of people woulda thought twice.”

Steve laughed and smiled fondly, only to receive a glare from Barnes.

“Don’t laugh,” Barnes warned “I’m still pissed at you.”

Barnes pushed a button and the screen went clear. He looked over at Steve, who had taken his seat in the back corner. Barnes had wanted to sit in the opposite corner, as far as he could get from anybody while he took everything in.

Sam and Natasha were on the other side of the van, between Steve and Barnes as a buffer, Natasha not seeming to mind that his boot was right next to her leg. He looked right at the three of them.

“Does anybody else have anything they want to tell me?” Barnes said.

“Well, I have a new job now,” Sam said with a shrug. “The interview process was a little intense, but—“

Natasha’s small smile said it all.

#

The Shield facility was located under a dam. Water dripped on him as he walked with the four of them, led by Maria Hill, into a series of metal doors.

“He’ll probably want to meet you,” Hill said as she turned to Barnes.

“Who will?” Natasha asked. Barnes heard a tone of suspicion in her voice.

They were brought to a room separated by a small, white curtain. When it was pulled back there was a man sitting up in a hospital bed, looking like he’d just been thrown into a working engine and then spat back out. When he turned his head, he saw that he was wearing a black eye patch over one eye, scars peeking out from underneath.

“Son of a bitch,” Steve said.

When Barnes looked over to the rest of them, he saw that both Steve and Natasha looked like they’d had the wind knocked out of them

“Who’s this guy?” Barnes asked, pointing with his thumb.

#

They sat around a table with Nick Fury, the guy whose death had put everyone on lockdown in the first place. After the initial awe and relief, Natasha and Steve were free to put scowls of disappointment on their faces.

“We could have used a little bit of a heads-up,” Steve said.

“Yes, that would have been smart,” Fury said. “I’ll just send a transmission to the one remaining safehouse not infiltrated by Hyrdra and give away the locations of that house and this bunker.”

Natasha’s shrug was slight, but it communicated her appreciation of that strategy just fine.

“And you,” Fury said, gesturing towards Steve with the arm that wasn’t broken. “You couldn’t help yourself, could you?”

“I’ve been lying for over 70 years, sir,” Steve said. “I thought you knew by now how terrible I am at it. It was time to give it up.”

“The entire point of Shield is to be something bigger than one person. Captain America was bigger than you. There’s a reason the military decided to keep your name out of the papers.”

“That’s bullshit,” Barnes said.

Everyone in the room looked at him. As they stared at him, he didn’t budge, didn’t even squirm. He planted himself and looked right at this man, who he had recently been told was one of the most powerful on the planet.

“Did you have something to contribute?” Maria Hill asked.

“Look at me,” Barnes said. “Do I look like the kind of guy that would be a huge supporter of the big red-white-and-blue guy they put on recruitment posters and propaganda? This isn’t the forties anymore.”

“But you let yourself get caught so you could rescue him, didn’t you?” Fury said.

“No, I didn’t. I went in there to get Steve.”

Barnes felt the stillness in the room and he crossed his arms over his chest, trying not to let it wig him out that it was the first time in two years that he’d been able to do that. He knew Steve was staring at him, but he didn’t want to look over. He wasn’t sure if he’d be able to handle his face.

“Captain America was meant to be bigger than the identity of one man,” Fury said. There was something in his voice. A calmness, already accepting of what Barnes was about to say before he’d even heard it.

“Captain America doesn’t mean a damn thing to me if he isn’t Steve,” Barnes finished.

He finally glanced over at Steve. His eyes were clear, and his breath was nearly still. Barnes nodded once, turned back to Fury.

“Half of Hydra’s entire plan was going to capitalize on the idea that everybody knows about Captain America, but not who he is,” Natasha said. “It’s all about _visibility_.”

Nick Fury sighed once, and he squirmed as the effort of taking a large breath caused him pain. He and Barnes shared a long stare, which neither of them wanted to back down from.

“Hydra still has the intel we need,” Fury said. “Basically the only option we have is to get back into a Shield base that is controlled by Hydra, figure out what the plan even is.”

Natasha nodded. “We could get into one of the smaller ones, get a connection to their mainframe—,” she began.

“No,” Steve said.

Barnes and everybody in the room turned their head towards Steve. He was standing there with his head lowered, and he had the most determined face Barnes had ever seen. They were waiting for him to continue, even Fury.

“We’re gonna go for the Triskelion. We’ve gotta be seen storming the castle. Any other way, they might still get what they want. They could take me out, put someone else in the uniform. Barnes is right. People have got to see me.”

“It’s a big statement,” Barnes said. “But how will the public even know what we’re up against?”

“We release everything,” Steve said.

He thought Natasha, Hill and Fury’s eyes were going to pop out of their heads. Natasha at least raised her eyebrow, the smallest sign that she was impressed.

“You know how long it took us to build this?” Fury asked. “You joined because of the legacy, because of who started this.”

“I took this up because I realized what would happen if I just stood by and watched. Four hundred men almost died in a factory in 1943 because I let people tell me I couldn’t do anything about it. But then I had to do something about it, and if Peggy hadn’t been there—

“But this isn’t what I thought she’d made. We don’t protect people anymore. We spy on them, we watch them, and now Hydra’s got a hold of everything you’ve set up. Nobody was supposed to have that kind of power, ever. We’re taking it all down as soon as the people see what Shield is. You want me to be a symbol, bigger than myself? Then this is where I’m taking my stand. Because I’m not going to be a symbol for Shield. That wasn’t what _I_ was supposed to be.”

Barnes couldn’t help the smile that pulled up the corner of his mouth. Until he’d learned it was Steve, he would never in a million years believe Captain America would be the one to expose a huge spy agency at the center of his own government.

That was why it was going to work.

#

When Fury wanted to talk to Barnes alone, it was like being called into the office by the principal. When everybody left them alone, Fury brought out a tablet, had it stand on a kickstand. Barnes already knew what he was pulling up. They were a spy agency. As soon as the soldiers had been attacked they’d probably gotten information on every single person captured, or who had managed to get away. Like him.

“When I found out you were the one they’d been pulling the information out of, I took a little peek,” Fury said. “Hope you don’t mind.”

“Why would I mind?” Barnes said, his smiling telling Fury exactly how much shit to eat.

“You have a very interesting history, Bucky.” Barnes snorted, bitter, at that name but Fury continued. “You did well in school. Very well. You could have had scholarships, gone to any college you wanted. Maybe you had a few classes you just refused to go to. But everything you applied yourself to, you excelled at.”

“Why are you telling me things I already know?”

“I’m just confused as to why you graduated high school, did odd-jobs, tried to be a professional fighter of all things, when you can speak eight languages and your best subject was advanced mathematics.”

Barnes shrugged.

“I thought I’d go abroad, and maybe I like numbers.”

“Or maybe a kid like you doesn’t get to go to college right after high school. Maybe you were hoping for the military to pay your education. I understand how post-traumatic stress can get in the way of that.”

“You don’t know me.”

“I think I get you, though. You want to know how to get out of this slump you’ve been in for years? Because this is a slump. You don’t even own a cell-phone, you refuse to watch TV, and your library reading list is insane but unfocused. If you think that’s some sort of counter-culture authenticity you’ve adopted, it’s not. You would be doing this on your own, even before you listened to that first second-hand vinyl. What you’ve been lacking, what will get you off your ass, is a cause.”

“A cause? Like Shield?” Barnes spat.

“A cause like the way you look at Cap as if he’s the sun at the center of your little universe. But you know what the sun does? It casts shadows.”

Barnes felt himself go still. He looked right at Fury, into the one good eye. Fury was staring at him like he could bore a hole through his thick skull with thought alone if that’s what it took for Barnes to get the message.

“What do you need me to do?” Barnes asked.

“Steve is a good man. A better man than any of us, but I’ll never tell it to his face. I’ve got to keep him humble somehow. But it’s also a flaw. He won’t always be able to do what needs to be done. So I need to know if you can be what he needs.”

“What does he need?”

“He needs somebody to do the dirty work, even if he doesn’t know that work is being done.”

Barnes face twisted as he looked to the side. He looked down at his arm, let it flex. It still felt strange, but it was under his control, like he’d never lost use of that arm in the first place. He realized how powerful he felt, and a creeping chill went up his spine. He turned back to Fury, determination sitting heavy on his face.

“You got any cash?” Barnes asked.

Fury raised an eyebrow.

#

Everybody else had a uniform. Sam all in black and badass, Natasha in her suit if she chose to be seen, and Steve would be the most visible of all of them. Barnes had to fix that image, taken with dozens of iPhones, of the guy in the bulletproof vest looking less like he belonged on a team with a bunch of superheroes and exactly like the guys that had been seen getting out of the building. But maybe not exactly like a superhero.

The plastic red shopping cart wobbled as Barnes pulled it along behind him. He wandered through the mixture hardware and convenience store, tossing whatever he needed into the cart. Some spray paint in red, white, and blue respectively; large children’s stencils; eyeliner; a DIY box of hair dye; duct tape; and finally a toothbrush and shaving razor because it had been way too long.

Barnes’ phone beeped in his pocket. It was a little thing that Fury had given him, the only phone Barnes had had not attached to a wall in a year and a half. He opened the text from Natasha.

 _Steve likes Baby Ruths I’m just saying_ _;)_

He dropped his supplies on the counter along with the candy bar. When he realized the teller was staring at him he blinked in confusion. The man glanced over for less than a second, a tell so slight he probably hadn’t even been aware of it.

Barnes looked down at the newspapers, and there they were. Three photographs in a row, over the fold, no less. It was Sam looking badass with his wingspan, his face masked by his goggles, but Steve was unmasked and soaking wet. Then there was Barnes looking like he might be nuts, with wild eyes and his liner smudged. Below them, the headline: _Friends or Foes_?

He grabbed the newspaper, plopped it on the pile of his purchases.

“This too,” Barnes said.


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thank you very much for the well-wishes when I had to stop writing this during finals!

People called him Major Asshole. He was certainly ex-military, but whether he was a real major or not was about as important as whether or not Captain America was a captain. Barnes rolled his eyes so hard they looked like they were going to fall out of his head when Fury showed him the picture of their target.

“You know this guy?” Sam asked.

“Everybody in my neighborhood knows this asshole,” Barnes said. “We don’t usually call him Rollins.”

Jack Rollins, secret agent of Hydra, skinhead recruiter extraordinaire, and Major Asshole. Barnes explained to them his reputation around the scene. He would roll in in all black, non-descript, and a military dress uniform hat covered in patches and sitting crooked. Nobody could quite convince the bouncers to keep him out. He never fought against anybody who didn’t throw the first punch, so he had a reason to stick around, but most people agreed he would start the fights. But talking shit about bands, calling teenagers poseurs, the many dickhead moves he made, was an open invitation for someone to try to knock his teeth in.

Barnes expressed his complete lack of disbelief that this was the guy who found the would-be skinheads and put them into Hydra’s street army, told them when to go after the weakest spots, how to spread fear.

“I have been waiting to knock this guy out forever,” Barnes said. “I like my haunts too much to risk it until now, though.”

“Does this mean you know where he’ll be?” Fury asked.

“I just might,” Barnes said with a smirk.

#

“Really?” Steve said as he stared at the poster.

They stood in the street. Rain dripped on them, and the only protection they had were their hoodies. Barnes fit in with the passing crowds in that area, his gray hoodie old and weathered, zipped up and tucked under his vest. Steve’s was blue under a brown jacket and his baseball cap stuck out under it, and he had a large fabric art bag slung over his shoulder. It felt odd for Barnes to be so close to his old apartment, back among the clubs he usually haunted. But this was where they needed to be.

They had stopped when they’d seen the posters, though. The little no-name club would have a show that night. It had been drawn with sharpie and Xeroxed to death on red copy paper and the ink was running, but it was still legible. It advertised that the band playing that night would be Star Spangled Anarchy, featuring The Disarmed.

“Huh,” Barnes said. “New bands.”

“It’s been a day.”

“You underestimate how quickly a punk band can form.”

“You live around here, your face was in the paper. Do you think—do they know you?”

“Probably.”

Steve let the odd moment pass over him and then shrugged off whatever was going through his head.

“So he’ll be in that club?” Steve asked. “Hydra is in the middle of salvaging whatever’s left of their plan, but you’re sure Rollins is going to go out for a drink?”

“I’ve seen these skinheads in action. Nothing guarantees they’ll be out like them being cranky that something didn’t go their way.”

They hid their faces from the bouncer at the door. The bouncer naturally stopped them, putting his arm over the door. But Barnes looked up to show his face. He knew this bouncer, had walked right past him every time he showed up, even after nights he was in a fight. He seemed surprised to see Barnes, and he could tell from the look he was given that he’d read the news.

Then the bouncer looked over and Steve let him see his face.

He nodded and let them in without a word.

Barnes led him to the balcony at the back of the space. There were benches and tables set up. There was no real unity to the place. The tables, benches, and stools were gotten second-hand, and the graffiti growing and changing every day. Barnes thought it felt homey.

He knew the band that was playing, just not as The Disarmed. They’d had about four names in the two months they’d played, changing every time they had to replace a band member. It was a bit odd to watch them perform with silver left sleeves sewn onto their clothes. When he looked over at Steve he was barely stifling a smile, and Barnes hit him on the arm.

Steve laid the art bag next to the bench and Barnes just barely heard the sound of the vibranium metal inside singing. They watched the doors as they started to sip at their beers. They began to talk distractedly.

“Wait, you can’t get drunk?” Barnes asked. Then his face changed, like he’d been told he had something terminal. “Can I get drunk?”

“Probably not,” Steve said. “I wouldn’t test it out during a mission, though.”

Barnes scowled at Steve and took a huge pull of his beer.

An hour passed without anything happening but the band playing barely-practiced songs, the scattering of a few dozen people who had gotten there early throwing themselves around. Barnes had been used to this kind of thing being boring, having to pass time doing nothing but sitting and watching for the target. Talking with Steve while they leaned into each other was less like they were on a mission and more like they were on another date. Barnes found himself regretting that that wasn’t what it was.

“You’re joking,” Barnes said. “You were going to be an artist?”

“That’s surprising?” Steve said.

Barnes had a wicked smile sneak onto his face.

“You ever draw any tattoos?”

“Yeah, for a couple of army guys.”

“Are you telling me there are like eighty and ninety year-old guys with tattoos you drew still on them?”

“Probably. Did you want me to draw something? Do you even have any free spots?”

“I’m sure we can figure out something.”

Steve’s eyes flicked down and Barnes could see he was mentally going through his memory of Barnes’ body. His eyes even moved, roaming over him like he could see under his clothes. The heavy darkness in his eyes made Barnes grin as he realized he was thinking about more than where there was space for tattoos.

The second band was just finishing setting up when Steve’s eyes shot up and he nodded towards the entrance.

Rollins strolled in the door. Several of the kids turned and glared at him. He had the aura of a man who showed up where he wasn’t wanted just to show that he could be there. But he wasn’t alone. Some guys in beanies and hats, four of them, followed after.

“Who are they?” Steve asked.

“If I were to guess?” Barnes said. “They’re probably shaved bald under those hats.”

“Let’s split up. I can cover the door, you get to the back exit and watch it, I—Barnes?”

Barnes stopped Steve from lifting himself up by sliding onto his lap. He wrapped his arms around Steve’s broad shoulders and kissed him, deep, intense. Steve pulled away, but not after kissing back for longer than necessary.

“We’re on a mission,” Steve said.

“We gotta keep watching, see what they do first. They’re not going to notice us up here, not if they don’t want to watch two guys making out. Which, you know, neo-Nazis, probably not.”

“You know Fury and everybody else is listening in?”

“Fuck ‘em. Watch the entrance, I’ve got my eye on Rollins.”

Barnes kissed Steve’s neck while he watched the five of them crowd around the bar, pushing kids out of the way to carve a space. He saw one of the skinheads look up at them, and then he sneered and looked away. Barnes couldn’t help but grin, even though nobody could see it.

“What are they up to?” Steve whispered.

“Well they’re not ordering drinks. That’s not a good sign.”

The headlining act came on stage. Barnes laughed, a little rare bit of real joy, when he got a good look at them. He knew the girl that was the lead singer, Amina, who always played with her three brothers. This was the first time he’d seen them change their name. She had painted a white A on her forehead and her hijab was an American flag. They didn’t even announce their names; it was obvious this was Star-Spangled Anarchy. They went into a thrash cover of M.I.A.’s Born Free.

When he took a look at Steve’s face, there was a strange surprise and pride in his face.

“I like this song,” Steve said.

“You know this song?” Barnes asked and pulled back.

“Why is everybody surprised that I listen to music that came out after 1945?”

“Whatever, gramps. Oh. Here we go.”

Steve turned his head to see what Barnes was looking at. The four men he’d come in with had spread out.

They stood up and when Steve put his hand out Barnes took it. They walked back to the ground floor, close to each other and leaning in to talk so that people still couldn’t see their faces. They tucked themselves into a corner behind one of the skinheads, who sneered when he saw they were kissing again, just before looking away. That’s when Steve lifted his art bag and Barnes grabbed the skinhead by the head and slammed it against the shield inside. The usual clang was muffled by the canvas and the decibel level of the music playing. They dragged him behind a booth. The punks sitting in it, for the sake of an unspoken code, shifted themselves so that anybody looking wouldn’t see the unconscious thug.

They separated, and Steve went after the one near the rear and put him in a sleeper hold and dragged him behind another booth after he went limp. He gave an appreciative nod to the gang of girls in starry skirts who were obviously there for the band, who then formed a circle around the unconscious skinhead to block him from view. If they knew who he was, they gave no sign.

Barnes had no subtlety in how he took out the third, simply opening the back exit and kicking the thug hard enough that he flew back into a big, green dumpster, and the door quietly swung back and clicked shut again.

He reached the bar at the same time as Steve, and Barnes grabbed the last guy, slamming the head of the skinhead against the bar.

Rollins looked up to find himself flanked by both Steve and Barnes.

“Looks like your friend’s had a bit much,” Steve said.

When Rollins looked over, his final piece of backup had his head against the bar like he’d passed out from too much beer. He turned back to the rest of the bar, saw that the others were nowhere in sight.

But then Rollins smiled and turned back to Steve.

“Captain Rogers,” he said. “Like I’m scared of a boy scout like you.”

“What about me?” Barnes said. “I’ve never even been camping.”

He grabbed a hold of Rollins’ hand and the man cried out. He was holding him with the metal arm, applying pressure that couldn’t be mistaken for what a normal hand could do. Then Rollins realized what he was, had probably been told one of the soldiers meant to be a Winter Storm agent had been outfitted with a metal arm.

“I’d kind of like to know a little bit about Hydra,” Steve said. “Like what the hell happened to our other bases.”

“You really think you can get it out of me like this?” Rollins said, gritting against Barnes’ continued squeezing. “Hydra teaches us focus through pain. Yours would be a base lesson.”

“You’re not going to tell us anything,” Steve said. “We’re willing to bet that the guy they put on the ground to recruit foot soldiers doesn’t know the plan.”

“So we’re going to take a little walk instead,” Barnes finished for him.

“What is this, Barnes?” Rollins said, pointing to Barnes. “It is Barnes, right? This loser wastes his life coming to clubs to get drunk for years and now he’s your sidekick?”

“Sidekick?” Barnes said, reeling back.

“Come on,” Steve said, grabbing Rollins and steering him off the barstool.

They slid out of the club and out into the alleyway, passing through a crowd that seemed to have some idea of what was happening, letting them pass unobstructed so long as it meant Rollins would be leaving.

They came out into the alleyway. What had been an empty alley, except for some scattered groups of smokers, had become walled off at the back by a regimen of Hydra skinheads, the red skull and tentacle symbol stitched onto the chests of their puffy jackets. The bouncer was nowhere to be seen.

Rollins smiled and that’s when Barnes looked down and saw it. A small device, blinking with a red flash. Hydra had gotten organized. He grabbed it and crushed it, but it was way too late.

They heard the door open from behind him, and a guy had come outside to smoke, spotted the wall of neo-Nazis and stopped dead in his tracks.

“Get back inside,” Steve said, waving him back in.

The kid looked right at him, saw Steve’s face under the cap, and recognition made his eyes go wide.

“Go!” Steve said again and the kid jumped and went back into the club, the noise of the band playing becoming a low vibration when he closed the entrance on his way back in.

Hydra was already coming at them with chains, pipes, and crowbars. Steve let go of Rollins and Barnes held on to him while the man tried to pull away. But not before Barnes took the opportunity to unzip his hoodie, show the messy hand-made American flag design he had spray-painted going lengthwise down his t-shirt, and he let his hood fall back to show a vibrant red streak he had added to his hair just hours before. In a swift movement Steve unzipped his canvas bag and pulled his shield out in time to block someone trying to hit him with a heavy steel chain.

Barnes didn’t have a shield, but he had Rollins. The skinheads tried to get at him past their leader, but they clipped him accidentally a few times, and it was enough of an advantage that Barnes landed a few punches.

They had been prepared for a fight alone. That’s why they had been sent, the two guys that could take out entire groups with no hassle. So when they heard the roar of voices from behind the skinheads Steve’s eyes went wide, like he’d seen something miraculous.

Most of the few dozen kids who had been inside had gone out the back fire exit to come behind Hydra. They had no weapons, but they threw themselves in anyway.

The sheer number of them overwhelmed Hydra. Most of them lost their weapons and were reduced to bare fists. It was chaos, but it wasn’t hard to tell one group from the other. The sameness of Hydra couldn’t be confused with the punks, not one of them looking the same, the black-clad kids in vintage tees mixing the same with the girls who had come in starry, colorful skirts. It was some of the the same looks all around, but they could never be mistaken for uniforms.

It couldn’t be a secret anymore who they were fighting with. Everybody had seen the photos, Steve and Barnes both sharing the spotlight with Sam as their revealed identity trended on every media site. And if that wasn’t obvious enough, Steve’s shield had been freshly painted and when he knocked aside a skinhead or two it couldn’t be mistaken for a plastic replica from Party City.

The frenzy was over in a few minutes time. Some of Hydra had run off, but a lot of them were knocked onto the ground where they writhed and moaned. It took Barnes a moment to realize that this actually meant the mission had failed. They were supposed to get in and out with Rollins without anyone knowing anything. They both knew those foot soldiers that had escaped would say what had happened, if Rollins’ device hadn’t already told Hydra he was captured.

The punks hollering and whooping as the sound of sirens began to appear in the distance made Barnes feel like maybe they’d done more than just the infiltration would have. And when he looked at Steve surrounded by kids crowding around and patting him, sometimes even embracing him, he couldn’t help but grin.

#

The limping and twitching Rollins lead the way as Barnes pushed him forward. They’d walked the seven blocks to the even rougher part of the neighborhood, leaving the carnage of the fight behind.

The door to the lower-level Hydra base didn’t seem like much, but that was probably the point. It was just an ale cellar entrance that looked hydraulic.

Barnes held him by the neck as he revealed a hidden fingerprint pad. He pushed his thumb against it and it read his print only to light up green. The door hissed open and it was a black pit inside.

“How much of a bad idea is it to still go in there?” Steve asked.

“It’s pure bone-head stupid,” Barnes said.

“You think taking this base out will change anything?” Rollins growled. “Cut off one head—”

Barnes punched him once and Rollins went limp and unconscious. He let Rollins drop face-first onto the alleyway dirt.

“Alright. Let’s go,” Steve said.


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some of you may not have realized that chapter 10 was revised as I cut a useless narrative from the story. You may want to reread chapter 10 if you only read the first version that was going to lead to a thread I dropped.

It was strange for Barnes to be able to hear so well. After having a bomb explode right next to him and years of loud rock shows afterwards, he’d given up on being able to hear very well ever again. But as he descended the stairs into the Hydra base he heard the humming of computers and the traffic in the nearest street above them.

As they walked through a corridor lined with metal doors he began to wonder where everybody was. He didn’t hear anything in the rooms they passed, or anything in the back. Just then they heard the scuttling of paper far at the end of the hall. He looked to Steve, who had heard it too. They exchanged silent hand gestures and flanked the door on both sides. Steve readied his shield and Barnes took out the handgun he’d kept concealed in the Hydra fight.

Steve bashed the door so that it flew open and Barnes took point, aiming at the man standing in the small office jumping and putting his hands up. He was the only man standing while all around him were about five prone bodies. But then Steve lowered his shield.

“Sitwell?” he said.

The man in a suit and glasses slowly lowered his hands until he heard Barnes cock his gun, and then his hands shot back up again. That’s when he saw he had a gasmask in his hand.

“You’re finally here. Good,” Sitwell said.

“You’re supposed to be dead,” Steve said.

“I needed Fury to think that,” Sitwell explained. But when it got nothing but a glower from Steve, the man had the look of someone who realized they’d said the exact worst thing they could have said. His arms went even higher.

“Who is this guy?” Barnes asked.

“Agent Sitwell,” Steve said. “You were supposed to have been killed on the Lumerian Star. But Hydra agents wouldn’t kill their own, would they?”

“I’m not Hydra,” he said.

“Says the guy tucked away in a Hydra base,” Barnes said.

“You see anybody else still standing around here?” Sitwell pointed out. “I put a sleeping gas in the vents once I realized you were coming. About damn time, too.”

That gave Barnes and Steve pause. It explained the silence, the lack of retaliation from Hydra after the public throwdown.

“What’s going on?” Steve asked, motioning for Barnes to lower his gun.

He did and Sitwell let his arms come down slowly.

“Fury’s got a few blind spots,” Sitwell said. “I was trying to cover them. I found out about Hydra, but everything went to hell before I could leak the info to Fury. The whole Winter Storm thing got pushed up, and then I heard about them trying to bring back Red Skull—there wasn’t a lot of time to do anything.”

“But you didn’t come back to Shield,” Steve said.

“Because nobody knew where anybody was. When they just assumed I was Hydra I just went with it. But then I saw you were in the area, and Rollins sent out his foot soldiers, and I knew you’d be looking for a Hydra base. I got here just in time. I’m good like that. If you’re expecting Hydra to roll in here, they won’t. I’ve already told the other bases that things are five by five. It won’t be long until they figure out I lied, though.”

“How do we know you’re not lying to _us_?” Barnes asked.

“Because I’m going to get you what you were coming here for. You want the Winter Storm documents? You want proof of what Red Skull was going to do with a clone body? I just got back from the Triskelion with a full drive in my pocket and I’ve had a target on my back ever since. The only reason a bullet hasn’t hit the mark is that, frankly, I’m really good at my job.”

Sitwell handed Steve the small device he’d had in his pocket.

“And there’s something else,” Sitwell said. “It’s why I was trying so hard to find you guys without giving anything away.”

There was a monitor on the desk that Sitwell swiveled around. He slid the bar locking the mainframe and entered a code. An image came up.

Barnes looked at Steve’s face first. Steve, who looked like the ground had dropped out from under him.

It was a while until Barnes understood completely the medical photo he was seeing. The features of the face were like a chimera.  At first he thought it was a weird Photoshop job, but then he recognized the snatches of Rumlow’s features. The other parts of the face were deep red, receded like the flesh had been melted off to reveal red bone. That face was staring out at him from the computer screen with a hatred he could feel between the lines of the monitor. 

“That’s not—,” Steve began.

“Red Skull? Yeah, it is. And a bit of Rumlow. And a little bit you. Actually, a lot you”

Steve made a face like he’d smelled something sour. Barnes imagined what it must be like to look at this thing, a twisted mangle of features, and know that it was made from pieces taken from himself. He felt himself getting ill on Steve’s behalf.

“What other information do you have?” Steve asked through his grimace.

“Everything you’d need to blow this open,” Sitwell confirmed. “And a lot of it’s going to be tied up with information that can be corroborated by the CIA, NSA, and FBI. Not that you need that proof but--.”

“But the public will.”

“You know they hang people who leak information these days,” Sitwell said as he realized what the plan was. “You do what you’re thinking of doing, most people are going to call you a traitor. Are you going to be the guy who attaches his name to the deed here?”

“It has to be done,” Steve said. “People have a right to know.”

“I can be your fall-guy,” Sitwell volunteered without missing a beat.

“I’m not hiding anymore, and certainly not from something like this. I’ve already decided I’d rather be a traitor than let innocent people be terrorized and controlled by Hydra. That’s what we set out to do by coming here. We give the people this information, they’ll do more to nip this in the bud than Shield could with all the guns in the world.”

“You sure about that?” Sitwell asked, raising an eyebrow.

“I have to be,” Steve said.

There were two ways people usually said things like that, in Barnes’ experience. Bitter assholes with their back against the wall who decided other people were their last resort; or phony people trying to win the glowing warm heart of patriotism vote in election campaigns. Steve was neither of those things.

“There’s a problem, though,” Sitwell said. “We plug any information into a computer from this drive and Hydra will find it immediately. Any member of the press we give this to will have Strike on them within minutes. You might as well paint a target on the back of their heads. We could leak it ourselves, but if it just shows up on the internet, it’ll be dismissed as fake.”

 “So it has to come from the press,” Steve said. His tone showed how less-than-thrilled he was about it.

“Do we know somebody who won’t also do a smear job on you in the meantime?” Sitwell asked. “The press doesn’t know what to think of Steve Rogers yet, and to be honest, ink sells better when it’s chummed.”

“I think I know someone,” Steve said. “I mean—I know someone who knows someone.”

“So now we just have to figure out how we’re going to give them the information.”

“You need something that won’t connect to the internets, or satellites or anything, right?” Barnes asked.

“How are we going to find something like that at short notice?” Sitwell exclaimed.

“Well—,” Barnes started and they both turned to look at him better as he scratched the back of his head.

#

Barnes wasn’t the sort of person to make his apartment comfortable for guests. If anybody came over, it was his friends needing to crash or the occasional band looking for a floor to sleep on before getting a bus to the next town. Thinking about appearances had been far down on the list of things to give a shit about, but even still, he had to work hard to look like he wasn’t even a little bit worried about what Steve thought of the state of the place.

They had come into the apartment building through the service entrance the landlord used to bring out the garbage. Natasha had done a sweep for bugs and checked the surrounding rooftops of spies and come up empty. But Hydra had assumed Barnes wouldn’t have anything to come back for after a Shield agent had packed his clothes for him and extracted.

Barnes saw that the first thing Steve and Sitwell’s eyes went to were the Sharpie graffiti on the wall. There was the occasional band logo, the predictable “x was here,” some salty turns of phrases; the usual shit drunk people scribble on walls.

“I don’t think you’re going to get your deposit back,” Steve remarked.

Barnes stood in front of his desk and booted up his computer and guided Sitwell to sit down.

“Here, you gotta hold this key until you see the OS processing screen,” Barnes said.

It was old, black, and square. It had no touch-screen capabilities, no wireless, a broken CD drive that lolled out of the side like the tongue of a lazy dog, and the right upper corner was cracked and bleeding a rainbow of colors into the screen. Barnes squirmed uncomfortably as three minutes passed before the OS booted up, heralded in by a tinny gong and a whirring in his processer like a piece of metal stuck in a grinder.

“Is this what computers really used to be like?” Steve asked, leaning forward.

“Unfortunately,” Sitwell said.

“It still works,” Barnes said, unable to help that there was a defensive edge in his voice. “At least it’s not the oldest thing in the room.”

“I’m just really glad they thawed me out after this became obsolete,” Steve said.

Barnes shoved Steve aside as he leaned over and typed his password to unlock it.

Sitwell inserted the drive and several documents opened, but it was a long time before everything was laid out. They watched as a background process became visible when it displayed the error in connecting to the wireless it was relying on in order to pinpoint their location. Sitwell crashed that process, and the process that threatened to shut down their access to the drive.

Steve leaned over and read the files over Sitwell’s shoulder. The air became heavy as they looked at it all, played video sessions and read the briefings and mission reports. They were relying on Steve’s memory for a while, since they couldn’t put this thing into a Shield computer. Thankfully for everyone, he had a photographic memory, one of those little things that Barnes kept learning about Steve.

And then, after they had read the briefings and memos, they both pulled back and exhaled.

There were several kill orders, each meant to be given to a different assassin. Each of the assassins were one of the soldiers they’d rescued from the abandoned hotel. Each target was a political figure standing in the way of Hydra controlling entire wings of government, their replacements ready to step in after emergency re-elections. And then there were the plans to stop every Avenger that could try to get them to stop. Stark, Banner, Barton, all on the list. Even Natasha. Hydra’s coup would be complete, and nobody would know to blame them.

And then there was another list of kill orders.

“They were going to have the soldiers wiped out after it was done,” Sitwell said. “And then whoever they were framing to be head of Hydra.”

“By Captain America,” Steve finished the inevitable thought. His sentence had come out like an exhale, a single breath carrying every worry he’d ever had. “Red Skull in my uniform. Turning me into some thug who indiscriminately kills whoever he thinks is a terrorist.”

“Red Skull would get in a new suit, adopt a new name, and become the poster boy for a world after all _this_ ,” Sitwell said, gesturing to the outlined plans. “Using an infrastructure that Shield has already put in place.”

“I let this happen,” Steve said.

“Don’t start,” Barnes said. “It’s not your fault, you were having a big sleep. But now we’ve got a list. Literally all we have to do is leak it. Don’t even wait for Fury’s order. The media will eat them alive.”

Steve had to step back, paced around the small apartment. Sitwell stood up and let Barnes look by himself for a second.

“So we’re going to give the whole computer to your contact?” Sitwell said.

“That’s the idea,” Steve said. “Just let me know when it’s safe to make a phone call.”

Barnes spooled manually through anything else that could give them some advantage, waiting with his usual patience to look at huge images and documents. Sitwell and Steve chattered a bit as he started looking at the names and faces of the people poised to take control in government, then moved on to different points of data, and then the folder marked “surveillance.”

And then he saw his own face.

His military ID photo stared out at him, and then page after page of the document was more photos. At first they were from the military—he remembered being at the base and flipping off his squadmates every time they tried to catch him off-guard for a picture. He’d assumed these had been vaporized when the IED exploded.

And then there was him at home. These weren’t taken by friends. It was him wandering around Brooklyn with a thousand-yard stare; him when he’d moved to DC; him after his first piercing. The longer he went along in the file the more he saw himself change. His hair growing long, when he shaved parts of his head, that time he tried green hair, his clothes becoming blacker, and then the first time he’d come out with his prosthetic painted like metal.

There were a lot of pictures of the arm. Any other time he would have joked about someone having a fetish. But this wasn’t funny. Without thinking about it his hand was over his mouth. He felt himself shake.

He looked at the code name they’d given him: WS-616. He referred back to the kill orders, looked for that code. For his target. The name “Tony Stark” stared back at him.

“Okay,” Steve said from behind him. “I think I know what we need to do. If we can—”

Steve’s voice stopped. Barnes was staring forward, but he knew that behind him Steve was looking at him, and at the pictures, then the file photo of Tony Stark’s kill order.

“Give us a minute,” Steve said to Sitwell.

There was a long pause before Sitwell wordlessly went out to stand in the hall. After he’d left, Barnes saw Steve drop the earpiece onto the desk next to the laptop where the plastic clattered against the plywood. Barnes pulled his out too, placed it down carefully. They’d both deactivated them, the small red light gone dark.

He had to stand up, get away from the computer. He heard Steve call his name, but it was like hearing it through a wall of water. He didn’t know where he was headed, or why he pressed his back against the wall next to the window. He was grabbing his metal arm by the bicep.

The world was shaking around the edges again, shuddering, and the reel was about to snap.

 _We were so inspired_.

“Barnes,” he heard Steve say.

“They watched me,” Barnes said. “Like some kind of fucking tagged animal in a nature documentary. They watched me the whole time.”

“You need to breathe,” Steve said.

“I want it off,” he said and his grip became tighter. He thought he could do it for a second, really tear the thing off. But it wasn’t like his old prosthetic. When he pulled against it he felt it pull against his skin. Skin which was suddenly prickling with sweat that refused to cool, not in the stuffy apartment till holding on to the humidity of the day.

“Hey. Hey. Don’t do that.”

Steve put his hand in Barnes’ to get it to stop tearing at metal. Barnes grip was tight. For a moment he thought that with his new strength he could really hurt him. But Steve held fast just as hard.

Barnes instead moved the rest of his body away from the arm, like it was something clinging on to him that he could shake off. He felt Steve’s hand on his shoulder and Barnes felt steadied, but that sensation of his skin crawling wouldn’t go away.

“You gotta give it time,” Steve said. “I’m sure we can get someone to take it off, but we’re pinned down here. It’s gonna be a little while longer.

“And what they did to me? Whatever fucking weird shit is in my fucking DNA now? How am I supposed to deal with that?”

“I might have some advice on that.”

Barnes looked up to see Steve smiling. His eyes were bright with the irony, one half of his lips curved up in a smile like a hook. Whatever contrary thing he was about to say died in his mouth and Barnes laughed, his head dropping to his chest. Steve laid his hand on his face.

“Just lemme sit down,” Barnes said.

Steve helped lower him down to sit on the floor before sitting down on his right.

“You gonna be alright?”

Barnes sat in silence, fidgeting, letting his fingers, metal and muscle alike, tangle up. Steve didn’t push for him to answer. They sat and listened to the occasional car go by, the street-light coming in between the slats of the blinds.

And then it passed. He’d panicked, but it was over. It wasn’t quick or sudden, it just wasn’t there anymore in the same gentle speed it took paper to fall. He had expected his attack to be as long and drawn out as the ones he’d had in the months after coming back from overseas. He let out a breath and put his head back against the wall. His heart was beating fine. It hadn’t turned into a heart attack. It never did. He was fine. He was shocked at how fine he was.

“How did you get used to this?” Barnes asked.

“Used to what?” Steve asked.

“Being superhuman?”

“Well, it took a while. The first fifteen minutes after I got out of that chamber I was chasing a Hydra assassin through New York City. One of the first things I did was trip over my own feet and crash through a storefront.”

“How’d you manage that?”

“Well there was about a hundred and fifty more pounds of me.”

“But you handled it,” Barnes said, running his hands through his hair in frustration.

“After Erskine died—the man who made the serum—the only use they had for me was taking as much blood out of me as they could. I got a job singing and dancing in a funny costume, but until then they just put me up in this little apartment. Everybody I knew was dead or shipped overseas. And there wasn’t anybody to tell me that what was going on in my head was normal. There wouldn’t be.”

“How do you get used to it?”

“It was rough. I broke a lot of things. Cups and plates, put myself through a few doors. But mostly the worst stuff went on up here,” he said, tapping his temple.

“Like your body isn’t yours. It can’t be.”

“Yeah.”

Barnes pulled off the gloves he had been wearing, opened both his hands, and looked at his palms. He turned them over and looked at the back of them. The patterns and images that he’d gotten tattooed on him, a work that had taken well over a year to complete. Stars and animals, patterns and shapes. Some of it meant something, a lot of it meant nothing at all. There wasn’t a single prick of a needle he’d regretted, and he hated needles. He let that hand lay over the metal armor of his new fingers.

That marked-up skin was still his, at least.

“Am I gonna be okay?”

“Are you okay now?”

“Yeah. But I wasn’t a few minutes ago.”

“Then you’ll be okay.”

Barnes let his head fall onto Steve’s shoulder. Steve wrapped an arm around him, and he felt the pressure of his hand on his metal shoulder.

Barnes leaned closer, was just going to bury his head in the crook of Steve’s neck. But then he had the thought that he’d like to kiss him there, and he acted on it. He laid one lingering kiss on the muscle of his neck, and then another, and another, rising to his jaw.

Then he let himself collapse fully into the circle of Steve’s arms, his shoulder becoming a pillow. He let himself breathe, to be okay, just for a second, knowing that the next day or so was going to be a whole lot of not okay.

“What’s that one mean?” Steve asked.

Barnes lifted his head and saw what Steve had nodded towards. The streetlight coming into the dark apartment between the window blinds illuminated the biggest piece of graffiti. “Invaders must die!” was almost two feet high, surrounded by jagged lines and arrows.

Barnes laughed with his whole body and his legs came out of the protective curl they were in to unfurl in front of him.

“Oh god that was forever ago,” Barnes said. “I don’t know anybody who’s not in on the joke.”

“Tell me about it.”

“Well it’s not that funny if you explain it.”

“Try me.”

Barnes laughed again, a private, quiet sound.

“A bunch of my friends were crashing here after a show. We’d gotten into a fight. There were these guys we’d been hanging out with, and they joined Hydra. And then we talked to some of their friends, and they were Nazi shitheads too, they just hadn’t gotten around to joining. Fucking Nazi punks seemed to be everywhere we looked and it was about four of us versus seven of them. We lost, big-time, so we ran back here. And someone said “It’s like some sort of secret invasion of the Nazi punks!” And we decided they had to go. That was kind of our motto. We said it to each other, like a code.”

“Secret invasion, huh?” Steve said, rolled the words in his mouth as he thought about it.

“Too bad we didn’t actually defeat the invasion. Just sort of got them out of the bars.”

“You were protecting the people you knew,” Steve said. “That’s a damn sight better than most people get around to.”

Barnes shrugged, too exhausted and glad of his words to be contrary. In the hollowness that was the quiet afterwards, like muscles after hard exercise, the idea came into his head. He let it ruminate, rolled it around for a while, and then he smiled.

“So we’re gonna meet with someone from the press. Nice and clandestine.”

“Yeah.”

“I have an idea where.”

When Steve turned to look at him, Barnes was flashing teeth as white and wicked as a wolf’s.

#

“Is this going to hurt?” Steve asked.

“Really?” Barnes asked. “You’re worried about this hurting?”

“Well I’ve never done this before.”

“Excuse me,” cut in Christine Everhart. “Can I take a picture of this? It’ll be good to have a visuals in the article.”

Steve knew there was going to be a picture of this. That’s why they had dragged the laptop to the tattoo shop and met her there. Barnes had thought about what it would look like: Steve Rogers, newly famous as the secret identity of Captain America, getting his first tattoo. He looked like Americana distilled, dressed in blue, with his blonde hair and handsome face. And the world would see this all-American boy getting marked for the first time, a wall of framed tattoo art hanging on the wall behind him.

“That’s why we’re here,” Barnes said.

Christine, who had been given a half an hour to arrive from her hotel room and so was wearing no make-up and somebody else’s shirt over yoga pants, took out a small DSLR pocket camera and leaned back on one leg to get the perfect shot. Barnes rolled back in the chair to get out of the way but she put the camera down.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

“I’m going to be in the picture if I don’t get back, right?” Barnes said.

“You’re supposed to be in the picture,” she said. “It doesn’t work without Captain America’s sidekicks.”

Barnes squinted his eyes at her, and then turned his head. Sam had agreed to come along too, and had also assumed he would just stand aside. They locked eyes, furrowed brows.

“Sidekicks?” Sam asked. There was a little bit of glee barely concealed in his voice.

“We’re a team,” Barnes said. “And I am not Rin Tin Tin.”

Christine raised her eyebrows. They both shrugged at each other and came in closer. The only person she couldn’t get to come in was Natasha, but they shared a glance that made it clear where the boundaries were. The photo was taken of the two of them watching as the artist—a girl named Sasha who Barnes had gotten most of his sleeve done by—began the work. It was done on his shoulder, three white stars in a row over a cresting blue ground, with five red stripes coming down underneath it. There was no outline of the shape, but everybody would recognize it as his first shield.

Christine interviewed Steve and took a few more pictures. She scanned the information on the laptop, even the documents on Barnes and the other soldiers. The thought of her publishing anything private on him, on any of the soldiers, left in Barnes the kind of worries in the belly that lead to ulcers. But she had promised it would be the only thing not to leak.

The article had to be written on Barnes’ ancient machine and its obsolete freeware word processer to do it. Anything else and they could risk someone looking at her screen remotely, seeing the article coming together. She would have less than five minutes once that USB drive was connected to a newer computer to leak the contents of the drive and post the article in the Washington Post site, an article to be reprinted later that week in Vanity Fair.

Her fingers busy even while she was looking right at Steve and asking him the hard stuff that Tony Stark had guaranteed she’d have the guts to ask. She asked him about the decision to keep his identity a secret, what he really thought of government spying, and about Hydra and its leader becoming the comic book villains that history refused to acknowledge. He did not flinch at a single question.

“So why aren’t the rest of you getting tattoos?” Christine asked as she began to wrap up the article. She even turned around and looked at Natasha, who was firmly set at the front of the shop and away from the lens of the camera.

There was a pause and the question hung heavy in the air. Sasha stopped and looked to the back of the shop. The three other tattoo artists who had come by to watch Captain America get his first ink had eyes that went brighter than a kid hearing the ice cream truck for the first time in June.

Sam made the most noise, but only before the needle hit skin.

“Is this my punishment for Jeff Goldblum in The Fly-ing that guy?” he asked as he braced.

The buzzing needle hit skin and his fear disappeared, even though he didn’t deny the tiny lines of the falcon wings against the bone in his forearm had hurt. He did nothing but compliment the artist if he had the thought to speak at all, because he was fascinated by watching the process work.

Natasha went with something small, something that could be concealed. The red of her widow symbol between her index and middle finger was done by a six foot five inch man they said was the best with tiny, delicate details. And since it took the least time he entertained her by giving her a manicure in matte red nail polish. A photo of her hand in focus and her face completely blurred behind it was the only one Natasha allowed Christine to take of her.

They had given Steve a piece of paper when they were occupied with those tattoos and no one was really paying attention to what he was drawing. Five minutes later there was a blue jay with open wings in the foreground in front of a white and blue star.

“I told you,” Barnes said when he came over to look at it. “You don’t even finish your first tattoo when you’re planning your next one.”

“This isn’t my next tattoo,” Steve said with a grin. “It’s yours.”

“I—” was what came out of Barnes’ mouth. He didn’t mean it to be what he said, so he started to babble. “All my tattoos are black, I just—why a blue jay?”

“You ever see a blue jay defend its territory?” Steve said. “They’ll take on the biggest threats if they come near something that’s theirs to protect.”

Barnes stiffened, spine going ram-rod straight as he let the image settle in his head. He looked at the way Steve had drawn it, the details and the way it looked so classic.

Barnes dragged one of the chairs to sit next to him and plopped down into it, putting his leg up on Steve’s thigh for good measure. He chuckled at Steve’s mild annoyance. It was made up for when he got a look at how much Barnes squirmed during a tattoo, even while the enhancement he had gotten made any bleeding and pain almost non-existent.

Barnes hadn’t thought of himself as the guy who would start getting inked in color, but it looked too good laid out on his neck to pass up.

#

The leak happened at six am, and the article hit the Washington Post website one minute after that. The headline on the website front page was massive and in bright red letters:

THE SECRET INVASION

The image the website had put up was of the chimera Red Skull over stock photos of the House and Senate, meant to draw people in and click on it. But that wasn’t the picture people talked about.

The image Christine had taken of Barnes and Sam, whose face was obscured, leaning over to watch the tattooing be done had “the strange, comedic composition of a Normal Rockwell painting”, or that’s what one journalist on twitter had said. The article had laid out everything Sitwell had gathered, being the first word to contextualize what Hydra was, where it was, and what it meant that the public had a hold of their plans before any government agency or news cycle did. Especially government agencies with ears listening in on every phone call, sacrificing any right to privacy for the sake of safety on the behalf of the public, or the news stations that made it all sound rational. It was scathing in its criticism of that system. The article was accompanied with close-ups of Sam and Natasha's tattoos, but not their faces.

But as the four of them stood inside the shield base under the dam and gathered around the same tablet computer and read it, they came to know how _Vanity Fair_ the article still was. It was a piece on the biggest conspiracy in US history. But it was also about the impressions she got of the way they were together as a group, the conversations they’d had, the way they’d jumped into getting tattoos in the same night with barely a nudge.

It was also the first time anybody had written an article that wasn’t so much about Captain America as about Steve Rogers. Barnes smiled to himself as he read the first portrait of him that spit in the face of all the crap Barnes had also once assumed Captain America to mean. It meant there were a lot of men with small American flag pins on their lapels who were going to be really, really mad by six-thirty am. He felt Natasha give his arm a gentle squeeze and she smiled on one side of her mouth.

“Now we wait?” Barnes said.

“Now we wait,” echoed Steve.


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pointless PWP chapter to get me back into the swing. Sorry for not updating in so long, I've been pulling 12 hour workdays. Plot to commence shortly.

It was good to sleep in the dam. There were no windows to let them know it was the middle of the day, but the truth was that both of them were capable of sleeping anywhere. And it wasn’t the exhaustion of running around, doing covert ops, taking out and fighting Hydra; it was the twenty-four hour news cycle that had finally prompted Barnes to say that he was going to bed. He couldn’t take it anymore. Everybody had an opinion, and every opinion was ill-informed, wrong, and wildly speculative at first. Then it went to downright infuriating. It didn’t look like it was bothering Steve, but Barnes couldn’t bear it. He announced he was done and stomped off.

That Steve followed behind him didn’t bother him at all.

They showered and dressed in some recently cleaned but ill-fitting exercise clothes set aside for any Shield agents who might by bunking in the base. Barnes wasn’t used to his arms being larger, and the sleeves of the shirts pinched his biceps. But he was too exhausted to really care. His head hit the pillow and Steve insinuated himself into the too-small bed next to him and they fell asleep at once.

Then there was an alarm. He jolted awake, his legs twitching like he was going to leap out of bed. It was just a little electronic chirping, coming from the floor beside the bed.

He turned his head and saw Steve opening his eyes, lazily, his long lashes slowly going up and down as he woke. He rolled over and grabbed what was beeping. It was a digital timer, and he turned it off. Automatic lights began to flicker on in response to the clock and Barnes squinted.

“Good morning,” Barnes said. “Or whatever. What time is it?”

“I set it for six hours,” Steve said. “It’s a little after thirteen-hundred.”

“Do we have to get up? I don’t think I can face it. The talking heads, the politicians. I want to go back to bed already.”

“Me too. But we gotta get up. Come on, Barnes.”

“Nope,” Barnes groaned and fell back onto his pillow, throwing his right arm over his eyes.

“If there’s any news about—“

“If there had been, someone would have woken us. Did you tell anybody when you’d be up?”

“I told them we’d be up and about by fourteen-hundred.”

“So we’ve got an hour?”

“Yeah, I just thought—“

Whatever was going to come out of Steve’s mouth was cut off and forgotten when Barnes rolled over to straddle Steve’s hips, press him down and kiss him. One of Barnes favorite tests was to kiss someone with his morning breath still in his mouth.

Steve didn’t miss a beat. He pulled Barnes in, grabbing the back of his neck to bring him closer. He obviously didn’t mind, and Steve’s breath was, ridiculously, not so bad.

“You mind if we make it quick?” Steve said, and there was an edge of disappointment to his own expectations.

“We’ve got like, an hour,” Barnes said. “What the hell is ‘quick’ to you?”

Steve just smiled and pulled him in again. They kissed for so long, stirring against each other, that Barnes really did start wondering about the time. He had no gauge of time. He couldn’t see the sun or a clock to see the minutes passing by one-by-one. Yet he was aware time was passing, and it was driving him nuts. He didn’t want to feel it, the urgency. He wanted everything to stop for just a little while, to be there with Steve, just be there and not give a shit about time or the end of the world or whatever. His mind wandered anyway, to the turning world outside. When they went outside, would anyone have found Alexander Pierce? Would anyone have spotted the thing that used to be Red Skull and Crossbones? What the hell were the politicians saying? And would Steve Rogers, aka Captain America, still be the number one on every wanted list?

“Hey,” Steve whispered when he broke away. “Where are you right now?”

“I don’t know. Distracted. You’d better start focusing me,” Barnes said and then smiled.

Steve pulled down the waist of Barnes’ pants, but not all the way. His hips showed, the red of his star tattoo bare. Fingers trailed against the stream of tattoos before holding his hips. Steve pulled his hands away as if it were a Herculean task to reach down to the side of the bed. He pulled out a small bottle.

“This was supposed to be for your arm,” Steve said as he uncapped the fresh bottle of lubricant. “You know, for chafing.”

“How considerate,” Barnes said. “Did you know you’re a crap liar, Rogers?”

Steve wet his fingers and slipped them inside of Barnes, who found himself arching into them while Steve kissed the fresh and bright blue jay tattoo on his neck.

“Have you ever been able to just—,” Barnes began, his voice catching in his throat as sensation took over his brain as Steve pushed deeper into him.

“What?” Steve asked, voice low and deep.

“Just use all your strength? All of it? You’ve had to be delicate with people, haven’t you? When was the last time you were really able to just—”

He stared into Steve’s eyes, saw recognition in them. It had been something he’d thought about, Barnes could tell. For once, though, Barnes didn’t have the urge to grin at him, to tease him.

Barnes had been lonely, and he didn’t want to trace how far back he’d first noticed it. It was easier to think that maybe it was since the bomb that took his arm, since nobody had really been able to understand. Since then, people have just pitied him and wanted to help in ways that weren’t all that helpful. He was scared if he thought further back, he’d find it was always there. He didn’t want to think of a last time he was with someone who was really, completely with him, because what if it had never really happened?

He had been expecting to tease Steve, but he had said the dumbest thing possible and tapped something much more intimate than he was prepared for. Barnes had really been wondering if he’d ever been able to be himself with someone. In that moment, he found out two things. That Steve really hadn’t, but then he had gone ahead and told Steve that no, neither had he.

 _Shit_ , Barnes swore inside his head.

Barnes did the only thing he could think to do in that second.

He kissed Steve the way he had the first time. It was the same desperate grab, but stronger, and he used that metal hand to hold him better. He pulled against Steve and sucked on his tongue so hard that it was like he was trying to pull him out of his body.

Steve responded by picking him up, flipping him over so that Barnes was thrown down onto his back.

Steve was fearsome when he was rough. Barnes had been freaked out by some guys that were like that. It was usually too much, and he was even scared sometimes. People do weird shit in the middle of being passionate, can even hurt someone.

But even while he was handled so thoroughly by Steve, he’d never trusted someone to do it, not really. Steve was strong, could punch through a wall, survive a fourteen story drop, rip through doors, but the one thing he’d never do is go too far. He protected what he cared about. He wouldn’t hurt something he—

 _“_ Shit,” Barnes swore minutes later when he realized it fully, just before his own orgasm was fucked out of him, hands-free as Steve had pinned his arms down onto the bed. Barnes hadn’t even tried to free himself from that stronghold, had just enjoyed riding out what Steve had done to him, not just with his hips but with his mouth wandering, finding Barnes’ piercings and every sensitive spot besides. He had put his trust in someone to give him what he had no idea he wanted and for once it wasn’t a massive mistake. He grinned to himself, arched back.

Steve let him go and Barnes wrapped his arms around that broad chest to hold him close as Steve came inside him. Steve lifted himself when it was over, moved to brush Barnes’ long hair away from his face where it was clinging to sweat.

“Bucky, I—,” Steve began.

But there was a creak, a crack, and the bed collapsed onto the floor, but at just one end. They barely caught themselves as they slid onto the floor, still tangled up in each other and the sheets.

“ _Christ_ , Steve,” Barnes swore.

“It’s okay, we’ll use my bed next time,” Steve said, his voice betraying how close he was to laughing. “It’s made of adamantium. And Barnes, I—I’m sorry.”

“Not your fault. We fucked on a bed made for mere mortals. Wait, adamantium? Isn’t that the stuff that Wol—”

“No, I mean—I called you Bucky again.”

“You know what?” Barnes said and grinned, but his eyes soft and not their usual bitter teasing. “I didn’t even notice.”

“I’m still sorry.”

“You can call me Bucky.”

Steve got the chance to brush the hair away, to cup his cheek.

“Really?” Steve said, his smile soft.

“Don’t make it a thing, okay?” Barnes said with a playful shove to get Steve off him. “I don’t want it catching on. The name seems to want to stick.”


	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I would explain my hiatus, but does it matter? No. You know what matters? Sam in a suit. Sam in a suit matters.

Alexander Pierce walked up to a podium. He took the time to pull out and adjust his tortoise shell glasses as he prepared himself at the podium. He was taking his time, like patience itself in human form. He adjusted the mike, took a drink of water. He was acting like he was waiting for press noise to die down, but there was no noise. There were no press in that room at all. It was a signal coming from somewhere anonymous, and Hydra was in complete control of the perception. Yet all the dressing was the same, and no one would notice that nobody was asking questions, taking pictures, or writing anything down. It was a play, the stage set, the actors prepared.

Barnes glanced over at Steve. He was standing next to Barnes in the rec room, arms crossed as he glared at the television. He was concentrating on every word, and already looking pissed at what he anticipated to hear.

“I don’t like it,” Barnes said.

Steve gave a small, derisive smile.

By the time Pierce had gotten two minutes into the speech, Barnes began to feel his stomach drop. Barnes wasn’t fooled by a single word. He knew a lot of people that wouldn’t be. People who could see the layer of slime of a politician, knew to single out which of the bastards clung to their seats of power like they were in an airplane going down. He knew them all on sight.

But Bucky knew what would happen next.

A lot of other people were going to see Pierce and they were going to have doubts. Pierce had two things going for him. There was the obvious, the Peace Prize he turned down, and years of civic service. But the worst part was that sounded reasonable and level. Every single word. The police would still have an arrest warrant for Pierce and others like him. But Barnes could feel doubt seeping out into the world, an oil spill that refused to be contained. Especially because the other person with a big warrant out on him which pundits would not stop talking about was standing next to Barnes.

“Okay,” Steve said, exhaling. “Our turn.”

They all left the room to prepare, Natasha and Sam discussing some minor details that Barnes couldn’t hear. Barnes couldn’t resist taking one more last look over his shoulder at the TV, the addiction of the 24 hour new cycle back in his blood even after many long years of a TV-less existence. The anchor was recapping what had been said, a logo too cartoonish for a news organization, spelling out ‘Most Wanted’ under a picture of Steve and Alexander Pierce.

The screen changed to show a full picture of Steve. It was one of the pictures from the leaked files. Steve, just out of the ice, just woken up from a seventy-year slumber.

He knew that expression. He’d looked at it in the mirror a million times. They called it the thousand-yard stare. It was empty, but looking elsewhere. And tired, more than tired.

Barnes felt his face go slack before his brow knotted. Steve, who believed in him, this grungy, loud-mouthed punk he barely knew. This man who told him to stand up, stand tall.

He looked over to Steve, who gave the smallest of smiles as he exited the room. It was a smile for Barnes’ sake, to say that they could keep going.

Barnes felt like he’d been punched in the chest.

 _Don’t do this_ , Barnes thought.

Then he clamped down on his jaw, nodded and smiled his approval. They were going to hang him in the court of public opinion, but it was better than Steve never forgiving himself for neglecting to do what he said he would.

#

Barnes hated having to watch it all unfold on a screen. He wanted to be there. Of course he did. But he hadn’t even piped up when Steve had laid out the plan. He trusted him enough to know that if Steve believed the risk to be worth it, then it was.

It was still a punch to the gut to see Steve arrested.

Natasha had a tablet on her lap as they drove through DC in a van. Bucky was leaning into her space, and she didn’t mind his chin lying on her shoulder, his knee leaning against her leg, as he watched the broadcast with her.

The news had gone international in seconds. An ABC reporter had been in the hall when Steve turned himself in to the local police, just as they’d orchestrated. An encrypted email to an ambitious local reporter who knew better than to let anybody else know what was going to happen was more reliable than a compass in the woods.

The handcuffs they had put on Steve were merely symbolic. All Steve would have had to do was wrench his hands apart and the links and locks would have been obliterated. The cop putting them on him looked beyond ashamed to be the one having to do the job of arresting Captain America, but Steve’s face was set to comfort the man, making sure he knew he was just doing his job.

 _Of fucking course_ , thought Barnes, and his heart burned when he looked at Steve’s face.

“He’s gonna be okay,” Natasha said, knowing what was going on by the set of Bucky’s jaw.

“I know,” Barnes replied, more defiant than he’d intended.

Natasha reached up and smoothed the back of his head, letting Barnes lean into her more.

“It’s trending,” Sam noted, holding his phone up so that both of them could see.

“Hashtag?” Barnes asked with a cocked brow.

“Hashtag OrangeIsTheNewCap.”

“I don’t get it.”

“That’s because you need Netflix.”

The van made a sharp turn into an alley and came to a stop near a sea-green door. They were in amongst tall, modern buildings again in the heart of DC, and there was no way that Barnes would have been able to go unnoticed if he walked in the front door. Someone with a smart phone would have recognized the tatted-up, pierced punk who was the current matter of debate in online columns and blog posts. Barnes wondered how dense people would have to be to take a picture of him standing on top of Steve in the hulk of a destroyed car and decide they knew the entire story, when there was a picture in circulation of him helping Steve up just seconds later. But that was just a side-effect of newfound fame, he was discovering.

They filed out of the parked van once they heard the knock on the back door. They unlocked the rear doors and filed out, Sitwell gesturing for them to hurry and get out of sight.

Sitwell had bypassed the security cameras; he had someone on the inside of the building feeding the cameras with old footage from the day before. They took the service elevator up to the tenth floor.

The door slid open and a janitor was poised to enter. He was a young guy, and his head bobbed to music that was playing loud enough that Barnes could clearly hear a few of the lyrics. The kid was ready to push the cart of dirty plates into the elevator. The cart rattled with dishes as he jerked it back violently.

Barnes, Natasha and Sam filed out after a rushing Sitwell, and Barnes was going to follow. But then he screwed up his face, sighed, and turned around.

The kid looked like he would wet his pants when the Winter Soldier marched towards him and he stifled a shout when Barnes plucked the earbuds from his ear and pulled his phone out of his pocket.

Barnes pressed the volume buttons until he saw the bar go down enough. Before he handed it back to the kid, he held the phone just in front of him, the janitor too scared to take it back.

“Listen,” Barnes said. “You don’t need to listen to music this loud when you’re working. You’ll get fired if you can’t hear your boss coming, or, fuck, a hotel guest. But more importantly, don’t blow your ears out with shitty, tinny earbuds. You save your ears so they can get obliterated at live shows, like you’re supposed to, got it?”

The kid nodded in agreement. Barnes had to shove the phone back into his hands for the shocked kid to take it back.

“Should wear ear plugs at shows, too,” Barnes said. “Just to be safe.”

He gestured to his ears and then gave a thumbs-up as he darted away to catch up with Nat, Sam, and Sitwell. The kid only nodded, dumbfounded.

Sitwell knocked at door 557 and held up a round badge. They saw a red laser come out of the peephole to read the code on the card. The door unlocked from the inside and they were let in.

The computer setup was better than the one in the bolt-hole outside the city. It looked like a cleaner, more efficient setup, without the massive wires and towers. It was just a few laptops, interconnected through a simple hub.

Barnes had to suppress the agony of desire. Now that the remnants of SHIELD had his computer, and likely wouldn’t give it back, he looked at the thin, silver, gleaming things, and realized he actually wasn’t that great at not caring about material possessions after all. He was hovering near one of them, watching the processing speed as Sitwell began to brief the rest of the agents in the room with what the four of them already knew so far.

Barnes turned away, and Natasha was staring at him with one brow shot up.

“Shut up,” Barnes whispered.

The corner of Nat’s mouth pulled, like someone had tugged a string for less than a second.

The suit they gave Sam wasn’t the standard black suit of a government agent. Hydra would be looking out for that. So when Sam stepped out of the hotel bathroom in a dark grey three-piece, a pocket square of blood-red and grey, with a tie the same red, and a crisp, white shirt underneath, Barnes whistled.

“Come on,” Sam said.

His tone had said bashful, but the grin on his face knew how good he looked.

“Hey,” Barnes said. “I know I may get some of my clothes from a bargain bin at the thrift store, but I know a designer suit when I see one. It looks tailored. Wait, why does it look tailored?”

They both turned to Natasha. Catching them staring, she just shrugged, and shook her head slightly.

“I took his measurements,” Natasha said.

Sam looked to the ceiling as he searched his thoughts.

“Uh—when?” Sam asked.

Natasha looked like she was really considering telling him, but then her mouth closed and there was that fishing-wire tug of a smile again and she walked away.

“When?” Sam said, a little loud, but grinning.

#

Sam was enjoying his mission too much.

He had on his Tom Ford suit, and a pair of Ermenegildo Zegna aviators in gold hung from his breast pocket, reflecting the light in the hotel lobby bar. Standing at the bar while holding his Perrier water with lime, which he was convincing everybody was a gin and tonic with attitude alone, he blended in perfectly with the upper-crust.

“You look ridiculous,” Barnes said.

While Sam was enjoying the spacious floor plans and high ceilings of the hotel, Barnes muttered down the microphone in a cramped janitorial closet, surveying Sam’s surroundings. He was lit up with the silver-blue glow of the laptop opened in front of him as he sat, cross-legged, on the floor.

“Hey, you got to do a mission with your crowd,” Sam said. “Let me do one with mine.”

“This is not your crowd,” Barnes said.

“It is. I belong here. These are my people.”

“You’re bourgeoisie scum.”

“Alright, whatever, pinko.”

Barnes had to stifle his laughter and he saw through the monitor that Sam had taken a sip of his rich people water to keep from busting into a fit.

Barnes felt a sensation go through him when he realized what he was reminded of.

It reminded him of Iraq.

He was having the same feeling he would get after days of nothing in the blanching heat near Fallujah, but while on American soil, in one of the most expensive hotels in the country. This was what they did, Barnes and the rest of his unit, when they were waiting. It was the bad jokes, it was that everything was funny, and everything was boring. No matter how high the stakes, the boredom was what they were sure they were going to die of. So they told crappy jokes and made fun of each other.

Barnes anticipated panic, but it just wasn’t there. He let himself smile as he watched Sam putter around the bar, the occasional chat with the bartender or anybody who sat nearby.

“Our mark had better show up soon,” Sam said. “Because Happy Hour is in five minutes and I’ve been eyeing the four-dollar calamari.”

“Well, you’re going to miss out on eating a tentacle, because check your five o’clock,” Barnes said.

SHIELD had to climb in through back alleys and trick security cameras, and meanwhile, Hydra had strolled in the front door. More specifically, Major Asshole had strolled in the front door.

Rollins’ face was still sore and blotched with purple, which he tried to hide under knock-off Ray Bans. A few employees were eyeing him, wondering what he was doing in their hotel looking like that.

Rollins spotted the signs he was looking for—the directory placards that showed the direction to various meeting rooms and convention halls. He moved down the hall, searching for signs of espionage, eyes sharp under a furrowed brow.

Sam nodded to the bartender, who nodded back at him, taking away his Perrier and the tip Sam had placed under the glass. He put on his golden shades and followed Rollins down the hall.

There was nobody in the shadow of the hallway, the lights seeming to dim between the entrance to the lobby and the corner that led to the convention room.

Sam whistled just as Rollins was in front of the janitorial closet, the sound sharp enough to sting the air. Rollins glared at Sam when he glanced back.

“Hey, you’re Major Asshole, right?” Sam said.

Rollins was walking towards Sam, a closed fist at his side.

The janitor closet door burst open and Barnes came from behind, grabbed Rollins over the mouth and pulled him back so quickly that the suitcase he was holding flew out of his hand. The pair disappeared into the unlit closet.

Sam reached down, picked up the case. He smoothed the crease that had formed in his jacket when he straightened.

The sound of cleaning supplies rattling, and the bash of metal against metal sounded inside of the janitor’s closet. And then it kept sounding. Then it would stop. Then another clang. Sam looked down and checked his watch.

Bucky marched out of the janitor’s closet, a key in his hand attached to a broken handcuff. Barnes unhooked the key from the broken chain. Sam held the case out and Barnes slid the key in, and they made the switch in two seconds. Barnes handed Sam the key and slipped back into the unlit janitor’s closet.

Sam walked to the meeting hall and rapped on the door. A moment later it was opened by a man in a suit, who sneered at him.

“This is a private meeting,” said the man.

“I’m expected,” Sam replied.

“It’s okay,” said a voice from inside. “Let him in.”

Sam was lead into the meeting room. The carpet was plush and new, the ceiling high and strung with golden chandeliers. Hydra had set up tables for a conference, but their array of computers took up most of the space. Sam heard the beeping of a heart monitor, and glanced over at the hospital bed.

He tried not to allow the unease of seeing the unconscious chimera of Crossbones and the Red Skull to show on his face.

“I expected you to send one of our agents,” said Alexander Pierce.

Sam shook Pierce’s outstretched hand.

“You think I’d trust this to one of your agents?” Sam said. “My reputation is at stake here.”

“That’s a concern in your line of work,” Pierce said. “You should stick around. You know our organization. We’ll be in need of an information broker, now that things are changing.”

“That’s something I’m mightily interested in.”

Sam laid the suitcase on the table and opened it with his key. Inside, cushioned around foam, was a hard drive.

“Mr. Strummer,” Pierce said. “We are most certainly in business.”


	14. Chapter 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So now I'm back (from outer space)

Barnes pulled himself into the ceiling from the janitor’s closet. The ceiling tiles were nothing but small, perforated foam squares throughout the employee wing. The washing machines churned underneath and the smell of cooking was pumped through the vents from the kitchens a few partitions away. He grabbed the strong beams above him, barely letting his feet tap down on the ceiling strats as he walked along.

He was above the convention hall. The space above was large, to accommodate the larger piping and electrics required for the kind of things they hosted in that hotel. The tiny vent in the wall was not a very good window. He peered through the slats. He could see the back half of the room, and nothing in front. That was where Sam was.

Barnes looked down at the tablet and watched the live feed from Sam’s button camera.

“I can’t believe you got away with this,” Barnes said into the small communicator hidden in his collar.

“I’ll have you know,” Sam whispered. “I was a really good Aslan in my second grade class’ very short version of The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe.”

“I’d buy you as Aslan. Sam Wilson, Hydra ally, though. That’ll keep me laughing until Christmas.”

“You know, it’s gonna look really weird when I’m whispering over here to myself, _Bucky_.”

Barnes grinned and put down the tablet, propping it up on the floor so he could watch it. He unscrewed the vent and removed it with careful, quiet precision. He took a long look at everything in the room, the positions of each potential threat.

“You getting back out of here like you’re supposed to?” Sam asked.

“Yeah,” Barnes lied. That was when he swept under the window, and saw the long, black case, almost invisible in the dark. “I’m going back to meet Nat now.”

 _You can do this_ , Barnes said to himself as he kneeled.

He muted the microphone but he could still hear everything that was going on. Pierce was getting ready to turn on the machines that would wake up their dormant network, and whatever part of Winter Storm was left to salvage.

He opened the case and saw the sniper rifle in pieces, easy to assemble. Putting it together would be like muscle memory. But he couldn’t touch it quite yet. He breathed in, out, bowed his head. Prepared.

He put together the rifle in record time.

He could do this. He could be the one that goes in dark places, ahead of the people he loved, be the one who could do the dirty work so they didn’t have to be the—

“Hey, uh—,” someone said behind him.

Barnes body was alive with adrenaline. He moved too quick to even know what he was going to attack. What little he could see of the ceiling space was a spinning blur as he rounded. Metal fist hit a flesh face with a dull clud and whomever it was landed on his back.

Barnes pulled his side-arm out and pointed it down at the man holding his nose and writhing on the ground.

“Aw, come on,” the stranger said.

“Who are you?” Barnes demanded.

It was a whisper, but it had all the command of a shout.

“Climmbbt,” the man said through the hand over his face.

“Who?” Barnes demanded.

“Climbt. Clint. I’m Clint Barton. Agent Barton?”

“ _Who?_ ”

“I—I’m an Avenger?”

Barnes lowered his sidearm. The guy on the ground still read potential threat. He had the muscles, the weaponry, and the gear of someone with training. There was also a pink Band-Aid on his forehead and the general look of someone who hadn’t prioritized sleep for a while. Then he spotted the quiver, of all things, on his back.

“You’re the guy with the arrows,” Barnes said.

“Yeah. Hawkeye,” Clint said.

“Okay.”

“I think my nose is bleeding.”

“I punched you with a metal arm.”

“Welp, then it’s definitely broken.”

Barnes held out his right hand. Clint grabbed onto it with no hesitation. He yanked him up and Clint found the struts above him and underneath him with quick grace. He’d managed to get hit in the face and land on his back, but still nobody had been alerted to their presence.

“Hey, how you doing, man?” Clint said by way of breaking the ice.

“Did Fury send you?” Barnes said. “I don’t need any help.”

“Fury? Nah. Nat, though. Because Fury.”

The sound of machines roaring to life made Barnes jump. He looked over his shoulder at the tablet.

“Uh, Buck?” he heard Sam say in his ear.

The machines were waking up the Rumlow-Schmidt chimera. It looked like a monster movie, all electric static and crackling air. Barnes remembered the factory and twitched as the memories of capture rolled over him the same as the static electricity in the air.

“I think you do need help,” Clint insisted.

Barnes pulled himself over to the vent. The bed the chimera was lying in was there in the center of his sights.

“You need to get out of here,” Barnes growled.

“So, you get to be the one to assassinate the chimera and Pierce?” Clint said. “And then what?”

“Then this is over.”

“If you say so.”

“Fury said so. You don’t think this could help end this?”

“Fury’s one of the best men I’ve ever known. He’s smart, he’s looking at the big picture. He’s my boss for a reason. But he’s not above being wrong about what needs to be done. You really think this is going to help anybody? Oh Christ, I was hoping not to have to set this bone again. Ow ow ow.”

“I’m sorry, _who are you_? And why are you trying to stop me from executing war criminals?”

“Uh, a superhero? Card-carrying. I mean, it’s a key card. I need it to get into Avengers Tower, but like—yeah, you get the point.”

“What do you know about it?”

“I knew I had the Black Widow in my sights and I let her go.”

Barnes narrowed his eyes.

“How do you know Natasha?” Barnes asked.

“Just your basic ‘I was the assassin sent to kill her and recruited her instead and now we binge-watch TLC while nursing our wounds’ kind of relationship,” Clint said after the longest bout of air quotes Barnes had ever seen. “Wait, did she—did she not mention me?”

“No.”

“Oh. Well, I mean the point is that sometimes it’s smart to not take the shot. To disobey orders. Even if it’s Fury’s. I mean, Fury picked a bunch of not-order-following guys to have around him for a reason, right? Think about Stark. _Think about Steve_. She really hasn’t mentioned me?”

“ _Activate the Insight_ ,” Pierce ordered.

They’d both heard it over the tinny speakers. They turned to watch Sam sidling over to get out of a dangerous zone. Clint and Barnes watched as Sam let them see them inserting the board into a large computer.

And then everything shut down.

The Hydra agents were stunned into inactivity. They stared at their dead equipment while Pierce, brows furrowed, glanced around the room.

“What’s happening?” Pierce asked.

The computers rebooted. Humming back to life, almost singing, the computers started to connect to the Insight drive on their own. Then it was there.

Barnes held his breath. He hadn’t seen the video yet.

It was a risk. Steve was alone in front of the camera. The only thing that was in the room with him was his shield, propped like an afterthought on the wall behind him. Steve had asked to be alone when he filmed it, but Barnes had recognized the concrete of the dam that had been their last remaining base. The last one that could be called Shield’s, at least.

Then the message started broadcasting.

“If you’re watching this, I’m sorry to be interrupting your weekend,” Steve said.

 _Really_? Barnes thought.

“For those of you who haven’t been watching the news, my name is Steve Rogers. In 1943, I was given a serum designed to create a super-soldier. When they didn’t know what to do with me when it succeeded, they turned me into propaganda. I became Captain America.”

Barnes watched as he laid out the familiar story, for those watching across the country, even most of the globe, who didn’t know everything, or had been lied to by the press as Hydra pressed its influence on the 24-hour cycle. Steve was good at telling stories. He spoke plainly, and there was something about him that was lyrical. He said each crest of a sentence like a drumbeat that demands attention.

Barnes stared down at the milling Hydra agents. They were scrambling, trying to shut off the feed that was sending the signal through the airwaves. Sam began inching back into the room, getting ready to do his part.

All the while, Pierce was watching his people. Barnes recognized what he saw in the man’s eyes. Calculations were being made, the risks and potential gains being measured. It was the look of a man about to find the way to move out of danger and into power once again.

“I’m sorry,” Barnes said.

Hawkeye didn’t stop him. Barnes was on his knees, and propped up the sniper rifle. Things clicked into place in his mind, as easily as the black metal had connected with the ease of muscle memory.

Still nothing from Hawkeye as he brought the rifle up, lining up his aim. The Shield agent had made his case. Barnes peered into the scope. 

The chimera was not only awake. He was awake with a vengeance.

“What is--,” the chimera began to mutter.

“Put it back to sleep,” Pierce ordered.

It might as well not have even been in the room. Pierce gestured to it, dismissive.

The Red Skull had moved through forms and out of death to lead Hydra. Rumlow had been his disciple, seeding the pain in the terror that they spread, even in the intimacies on the bodies he captured—Barnes’ body. They had become one, a combination of horrors out a shared nightmare. A nightmare shared by both Steve and Barnes.

Barnes’ eyes rapidly blinked as he realized what he was looking at.

Both of those assholes were now useless.

In fact, they were making each other worse.

“ _It’s Pierce. I told you not to trust him._ ”

“SILENCE. I made you, I can unmake you. Stop thinking, I can hear your useless—“

They went on like that for some time before the Red Skull part of the Chimera asked Pierce again about Insight. Barnes couldn’t stop himself from watching it. He had lowered the sniper rifle, unable to do anything but watch. As it tried to argue with Pierce, Barnes realized it was _funny_.

It was funny because it was pathetic.

Barnes leaned his arm on the rifle to really let it sink in. He had understood. His brain clicked from the past to the now and he understood at last.

 _I’m not scared of you anymore_.

The Red Skull wasn’t ever going to lead Hydra. Schmidt was meant to be their shield, the face, the uniform. With his face and his head the way it was, he couldn’t recreate Captain America as the new face of a secret invasion. Barnes doubted Schmidt ever could have been the Hydra shield.

What good would it do for Barnes to shoot at a shield?

“They depend on us to be the worst versions of ourselves for this to work,” Barnes heard Steve say over the speakers.

Barnes felt a chill. Steve’s words were a bolt that hit in the exact place it was supposed to. He looked at the chimera, and he saw it for what it was. A deep sadness took the place of the resolve that was about to allow him to fulfill Fury’s orders.

“I think it’s time we readjusted tactics,” Pierce said.

Pierce held out his hand. Someone put a gun in it. Barnes realized what was about to happen, but he couldn’t bring a gun up in time.

Pierce raised his sidearm to the chimera’s head and the gunshot echoed off the tile of the high ceiling.

Barnes leaned back, taking in the scene with wide eyes.

“Jesus,” Sam whispered, a tiny, hushed noise in Barnes’ ear.

“I have this feeling like we might have to do some improvising,” Clint said.

The silence echoed as none of Hydra could move. The Nazi bastards had believed in him, which was gross to think about, but they had. The de facto leader in their modern party had killed the grotesque symbol of the superhuman. He recognized the wandering attention of a group without a compass.

“I told you to get the signal under control,” Pierce said.

Hyrda techs tapped on the disconnected keyboards and tried manually removing wires.

“Before I go, I have one more thing to let the people know,” they heard Steve say through the recording.

Barnes perked up. Steve’s tone had changed. In the air was a promise of something bigger.

“There’s something called second source,” Steve said. “We made a claim to Christine Everheart about the members of Hydra in high positions of government, documentation of vast wire-tapping, spying, and sedition. Those claims were merely backed up by one incomplete fraction and have no clear source. We could be making it all up. That’s why I will be arrested by the time this airs.”

“Does anybody around here have any idea what they are doing?” Pierce said. “Shut it off.”

“As I’ve been giving this really padded speech, enough time has gone by to get that second source. The data in the video file you’re currently watching has a virus in it. It has already begun transferring to open servers across the internet and to every major law and journalism agency across the globe. We’ve reversed the algorithm and anybody will be able to see exactly where Hydra has dug their heels in. Every last base, every little bolt-hole. Thank Natasha Romanov, who you will need to talk to when you charge Alexander Pierce with treason.”

“That a’boy,” Barnes whispered.

“I like the world I woke up in,” Steve said. “Nothing can stay in the shadows. Internet’s good for that.”

Barnes let the reality of where he was sink him into the ground. A quiet, dark crawlspace with a rifle in his hand. He wasn’t sure the words were meant for him, but it felt like it.

Bucky had been in the shadows. He’d made his home there. Not making any real friends, acting like his life didn’t matter, letting himself stay down, not even talking at his meetings or appointments. Maybe Fury had asked the wrong man to go even further back into the dark.

“Man, I wish I could be that equilant,” Clint said. “Eleph—Eloquent. Whatever, are we going to kick these guys’ asses or what?”

“Put out a kill order,” Pierce said. “We know that precinct. If they haven’t already, get the officers that—“

Barnes jumped as a bow appeared next to his ear. He was about to shout, sure that Clint was about to do the work Barnes had just decided to give up.

The arrow hit Pierce right in the face—and that’s when Barnes saw the spread of a gelatin-like goo over his face. He tried to yell out of a muffled mouth.

“That guy talks too much,” Hawkeye said.

“How did you—,” Barnes said. “What?”

“Putty arrow.”

Barnes only just started to form a question when the gunfire the Hydra agents leveled at them pinged off the sides of the wall. Barnes and Clint ducked for cover.

“What are they shooting at?” Sam asked.

“Uh—me,” Barnes confessed. “Plus one.”

“You have arrows?”

“No, it was Hawk—go ahead with the plan!”

Sam cursed and Barnes flinched away from the feedback in his ear. He slipped the tablet into a pocket and listened in as the pair of them slid around among the rafters to get to the fight.

“You!” a Hydra officer said.

Barnes could hear the muffled sounds of Secretary Pierce in the background

“Hey, what are you looking at me for?” Sam said.

“This is your doing,” the officer accused.

“Your man Rollins gave it to me direct. This must have been rooted deep inside your algorithm.”

“It doesn’t matter. You’ll be taken care of.”

“You could do that, or you could take advantage of my network. I’m a broker and I’ve invested in you. Let me protect my assets.”

Sam had done it. A handful of officers were taking Pierce out the back door where Sam had promised they had safe transportation.

“Clint,” Natasha said, cutting into the radio. “How’s the situation?”

“Nat?” Barnes interrupted as he and Clint starting climbing to get to the stairs. “Aren’t you supposed to be working on code relays?”

“Oh my god, you’re right,” Nat said. “It’s almost like nobody is where they’re supposed to be.”

Barnes stopped mid-stride. He had to swallow his lips and regroup for a second.

 

#

 

Barnes and Hawkeye—he had to take a second to let that sink in—were running across the rooves around the hotel. They could see the path of the car that Sam was given, a ridiculously flashy Audi that was exactly the kind of thing a powerful broker would take pride in owning. It wasn’t part of the plan, and the remaining Shield agents would be able to know Sam’s location with ease. Barnes just knew he had to follow it. He wasn’t going to pull away from his friends any more, not when so much was at stake.

There was no guarantee anymore. They all knew there were going to be Hydra bases buried too deep to be on the network that they had removed from all firewalls. The plan was to let Sam wear a tracker, handle the tactics and have the escape route. As they hopped from roof to roof, they knew they were going too far away from where Shield had mobilized. And there were so few of them left.

The Audi stopped in an alley. A garage was flanked by two Strike men with automatics. Every man in the Audi stepped out and walked inside. There was a whir as the platform of the garage began to sink. The entire thing was an elevator. It sunk down with Sam inside, holding a briefcase, and the Hydra agents propping up a panicking Pierce. They lowered and a door began to close after the falling elevator, the roof descending with it.

Clint shot an arrow high up on the building and Barnes saw an abseil line. Before he could think about what he was doing, he grabbed onto Clint’s waist. They sailed down to the ground floor, their feet hitting just the right spot to skid forward. They scrambled to get under the closing door, but just as they were lowering down, the Strike guards were turning and pointing their guns.

Clint spun to fall on his back and shot an arrow that split in two, hitting both men with electric arrows that made them collapse into unconsciousness just before he slid smoothly and quietly to the elevator roof. Neither of them landed hard enough to make themselves known.

The doors above them closed and they were thrown into pitch darkness.

“Okay, Barnes whispered. “You’re the guy with the arrows.”


	15. Chapter 15

The Hydra base came into view. They both ducked sideways like crabs off the roof of the elevator as they saw the many shelves of equipment lit up by the blue florescent lights.

There was a garage where black cars and military vehicles were parked. Sam got out and followed the Hydra agents into a forest of shelves populated by equipment both familiar and completely incomprehensible and foreign. They seemed to have everything covered, from military equipment to mad scientist gear.

Barnes and Clint snuck closer, hiding behind a tank of some kind. They peered just over the lip of it and saw the crowd. There he was. They’d been trying to find out if there was anybody more senior than Pierce. Sam walked up to the man as Pierce was sat on a chair and attended to.

“Mr. Strummer,” said the man with the monocle.

“Baron Strucker,” Sam said. “They told me about you in the car.”

“You have come to us at an opportune time.”

“Somebody’s got to buy the stocks when they’re low.”

“Pragmatic, very pragmatic. Arrest him.”

Barnes prickled as he had the instinct to rise and fight. He didn’t, but Clint put his hand on his arm anyway. Sam and Nat had thought it through, every possible situation, and Barnes didn’t know what came next.

“Woah woah woah,” Sam said. “You have to think about the future. It’s the information age, and I’m an information broker. You’ve got a lot of your information out there. You wanna wrangle it? Fudge it? Then you talk to me.”

Sam was held by the arms. They took away the briefcase in his hand.

“The new world order has always been here,” Strucker said. “Do you understand that? I have gone too long without speaking to Pierce. We adapt, Mr. Strummer. We don’t need information. We need obedience. You obey merely what gives you the most power. Your deal with Hydra is cancelled.”

Clint pointed and Barnes read the military signals. Barnes took the low and Clint took the high road.

Barnes moved between the shelves to follow the men taking Sam away. Sam complained the entire time as the soldiers became more and more annoyed with him. He lost track of Clint, but trusted that the Avenger was there.

Sam took the first strike at them as soon as they were out of earshot of the lab. Barnes jumped in and took the second one down, one strike all it took to knock him unconscious. When Sam saw Barnes he reeled back, still holding a soldier in a chokehold.

“What the hell are you doing here?” Sam said.

The soldier kicked some more. He was still flailing.

“I just didn’t want you to go in alone,” Barnes said.

“I appreciate it, but why the change of heart?” Sam asked as the soldier slapped his forearm. “Nick Fury said he had other orders for you.”

“Yeah. I just decided not to follow them. I’ll tell you what they were later.”

“How did you make it through basic, man?”

“A little appreciation would be nice, is all I’m saying.”

“Did Nat help you track me?”

“No, Hawkeye.”

Sam had to furrow his brows, a new name amidst all the chaos. The soldier in Sam’s arm completely collapsed. The both took a look at his pink face and recognized unconsciousness. Sam dropped him.

“The guy with the arrows?” Sam asked.

A sharp sound cut in and they saw a guard come forward. They both held up their hands as they saw him stalk towards them with his guns raised. They had just begun to back up when they heard a _thwip_ and a suction cup at the end of the arrow pulsed electricity until the guard fell down.

Sam looked up and Clint gave a friendly wave.

“Yeah, that guy,” Barnes said.

#

“Nat has been trying to find me this whole time,” Clint said when they regrouped. “I’m glad she did. It’s nice to get to save the world and tie up a loose end at the same time.”

All three of them sat perched in a shadowy alcove looking down at the lab. Hydra did have something, and if this was their back-up plan, Barnes didn’t want to know what other contingencies they had.

Barnes had recognized the gleaming silver and blue object from the news. Every single person who had been alive the day the sky tore open would know it.

Loki’s scepter was alive with watery blue light. Strucker was extracting some energy from it. Men in lab coats watched test mice follow their commands as the watery blue cascaded over them.

“What are they doing with that?” Sam asked.

“I think I know,” Barnes said. “But thinking about it makes me sick.”

Clint looked like he was suppressing nausea on his own.

“Pierce’s goals were pretty simple,” Clint said. “Totalitarian control by force, blah blah blah. Then I figured out they might have the scepter. I wanted it not to be true, but you know, we get the cards we’re dealt.”

“That thing brainwashes,” Sam said. “Are you telling me their goals have changed from putting bullets into people into a literal brainwashed population?”

“I’m not a fan of this plan,” Clint say by way of confirmation.

Barnes let his brow deepen into a furrow. He considered his resources, the things they had and couldn’t get to, and let himself say the obvious.

“You realize,” Barnes said. “Captain America, The Black Widow, and Nick Fury all know the stakes are probably higher than any of us realized, but they still put their trust in the ability of a grungy punk and a pair of bird brains to improvise.”

Sam shrugged.

“You get used to it,” Clint said.

“So what do we do now?” Barnes asked.

“You know,” Sam said. “Cap wasn’t the only one who got new gear.”

Barnes and Clint looked at him sideways.

#

What was left of Shield would have mobilized around the Hydra base by that point, waiting to pounce on any exiting personnel. From the sounds of things, Strucker was counting on the chaos of an exit to justify their first explosive act of terror. The world was already primed to react to more terror with compliance. Winter Storm was fresh in the collective consciousness. Everything, from the news, television shows, and even the economy was colored with the expectation of the next thing that was coming. Hydra knew exactly how to play that game, because they had invented the rules.

Hydra had their equipment ready. Cars and trucks were loaded with equipment and soldiers. A massive array was ready to unfurl and broadcast, protected by a solid wall of vehicles. Barnes bristled when half of the Hydra underground were the bastards that hung around his clubs in those ridiculous jackets. They’d finally been brought into the fold.

Strucker held the scepter in his hand. He took the sight of it in, the glowing blue nearly hypnotizing him. Yet Barnes knew he was in complete control of the chaotic, extraterrestrial object.

For such an otherworldly plan, Barnes thought the use of explosives was a little low-tech, but it would do.

He threw the small grenade near the trucks and it exploded. Another one, and they were scrambling to take control of the situation.

The soldiers were getting every piece of equipment ready with the brilliant efficiency of a squadron trained to handle just an event.

“Find the intruder!” Strucker yelled.

Strucker was tapped on the shoulder and turned to find Sam behind him. Sam collected the lapels of his jacket and brought him right up to his face.

“Or we could surrender,” Strucker said. “That would be fine.”

Sam threw down a hard head-butt and Strucker dropped to the ground. Before the scepter could fall, Sam snatched it out of the air.

Barnes laid down suppressive fire as Clint shot explosive arrows to cover their retreat to the elevator. It was pissing them off, and he knew they would follow.

That’s when Barnes realized what was wrong with the plan. Clint shot an arrow up that caught on something and a whirring motor shot him up into the air.

Behind an alcove to avoid gunfire, Sam took off his jacket and rolled up his sleeves. Barnes saw the new equipment Sam had talked about. Wrapping around Sam’s back was a layer of thin folded metal that had been hiding in the jacket lining.

There was no way for Barnes to get up. He wondered if he could cut an elevator line and get up that way.

“You had better not have gotten too heavy,” Sam said. “This is a one-off.”

“What?” Barnes said.

Sam grabbed him by the scruff of his jacket.

 _Oh no_.

The thin layer of metal unfurled and the sound of a rocket preceded Barnes being lifted into the sky, the wind whipping past his ears. They shot out into the world outside just as the one-off rocket whined and died. The wings were light enough that after Barnes was dropped onto the ground, Sam parasailed and landed gracefully in the street.

Barnes got right back up, even when he had rolled over his own shoulders and scrambled like a baby deer, and sprinted to follow Sam and Clint.

“Can you hear me now?” Clint yelled.

“I was starting to think you guys were going to leave me hanging,” Natasha said right as the black truck she was driving slid into the street in front of them. All three of them scrambled up into the bed and she turned the wheel like a madwoman, drifting the massive vehicle into the next street.

The Hydra vehicles—every single one of them, including the array they couldn’t use without the scepter that Sam was holding—were in pursuit.

“You had something we were going to do next, right?” Barnes asked.

“Nope,” Natasha said. “They’re going to do all the work.”

Another drifting turn to lead them into the next street and Barnes realized—there was nobody in the streets. It was a busy district and it was a ghost town. Most cars were gone, and businesses looked locked.

Then there was the barricade. And Steve in full uniform.

Natasha rolling the steering wheel brought them to a perfect parallel park. At the head of the street every Hydra vehicle from the underground appeared, tires squealing and engines rumbling. And then they all screeched to a complete stop.

The police barricade was behind them, too. And then Barnes saw Shield agents—the last of the ragged band—put up their own barricade the way Hydra had come.

Barnes got a good look at the police who were lined up around Steve. They were all kinds, and from patrol to detectives and other officers. There were military around them too, but Barnes knew this wasn’t National Guard. They had just _shown up_ from the VA and from the base nearby. Most of them looked like they had been in boxing matches. Then he remembered Pierce saying they had officers in precincts. Barnes could imagine the scuffle and confusion as Hydra made themselves known. He saw the officer who had ceremoniously arrested Steve in the paper standing right behind him, his face slammed with cuts and bruises.

Barnes looked at the resolve in their faces. He could have sworn, it was so insufferable. Just being around Steve made people want to take action and be better. They weren’t just there to help Steve, they were going to protect the people that would have been there to be terrorized. Hydra really hadn’t considered that in their plans.

“What are they doing?” Sam asked.

“Captain America escaped,” Natasha said. “They’re blocking the city off to find him. It’s a pretty intense situation. Who knows where he could be.”

The eye-in-the-sky news helicopters flying above him were extra punctuations to what Natasha had said.

Steve stepped forward and saw what Sam was holding. Barnes watched everything process in his head. Just one look and Steve knew what Hydra’s last resort was. He leveled his eyes at the Hydra convoy and their array. He mostly glared at a calm and defeated Pierce in the front seat of the flagship vehicle. Barnes spotted Baron Strucker behind the wheel, the guy with the even more absurd and grotesque plan. He was shrinking and wobbling in the face of Captain America, despite not being his target.

Steve charged. Nobody let him charge alone.

Barnes, Sam, Clint, Nat, tons of officers and Shield agents took them down piece by piece. Sam threw the scepter to Natasha’s opened hands and lifted her up. Sam was able to sail over most of them with just a jump to get to the array before his one-off wings snapped off. She opened up the array with the scepter like it was a can opener. Clint shot arrows and suppressed the soldiers that tried to get to them while they wrecked it. Then there was Barnes and Steve. They were in the thick of it, brawling. It felt good. It felt right. It was exactly where Barnes needed to be—in the open, in the fray, no more hiding and taking shots in the shadows.

#

Pierce was the big news piece when he was arrested. Pundits didn’t quite know what to do with Baron Strucker, since he was not in Washington politics. It was much too _international_ for their scripts. It was too close to Avengers business to fit into the little they knew.

Besides, there had been bigger news.

The police had more or less dispatched and there was little they could do to keep the public and the press away. A few officers stuck around in a loose circle, knowing Steve would come with them as soon as he was sure that Hydra was taken care of. It was ceremonious, everybody knew it, but nobody minded.

Natasha, Clint, and Sam had gone off, and Banes knew it was to rendezvous with Fury. The scepter had to be taken to one of their last secure locations and Barnes realized he didn’t really care where that was. Barnes didn’t have somewhere else he actually needed to be. He hovered near Steve and let the quiet after the fight settle. The sweat on his skin was cooled with a light breeze coming in across the Potomac.  

Barnes scanned the crowd. Steve didn’t. Surrounded by the pride of the people around him and the curiosity of the press, the only thing Steve could stare at was Barnes.

Barnes had a sadness he hadn’t felt in a long time. After the adrenaline and fear and joy and all of it, the calm sunk his heart. It was all over. They had won but it was over. He wouldn’t return to the shadows, not after what Steve had said. Barnes just couldn’t imagine life would do this to him again, sweeping him up out of his banal life to do something good. Somehow he knew it was all ending.

He’d find a way to live some little private life. He’d also go out more often and get serious about therapy. Obscurity would suit him instead. People would probably ask now and then what happened to that soldier in the Winter Army with the metal arm.

 _Things have to end sometime, I guess,_ Barnes thought.

“Steve,” Barnes said. “I suppose we should say —”

Barnes didn’t hear the gasp of the crowd or the cameras when Steve kissed him, grabbing both sides of his face as he pressed their faces together. They’d somehow left it all outside themselves. He would realize there was the sound of digital shutters all around them when he opened them again, but for ten glorious seconds they had somehow shut out the world.

Camera shutters. A lot of camera shutters. Barnes pulled back, his lips parted in awe. He had to suppress a grin.

“I think I might have made a little bit of trouble just then,” Steve said.

“You’re nothing but trouble, Rogers,” Barnes said.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Penultimate.


	16. Chapter 16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> An explanation, of sorts—I started this a long time ago and at a certain point couldn’t continue. Life stuff happened. I had to keep writing, so other projects happened. Novels happened. Other fics happened. I’ve had this story as background radiation the whole time. I called myself lazy and a jerk, but I hadn’t figured out what had gone wrong so I could fix it. It doesn’t help that I also lost my notes for the plot ending. I realized that wasn't what was stopping me from writing. It wasn't the plot. The truth was, I lost Barnes. I couldn’t find him. I went looking a few times and I got a spare chapter out of it. Nowhere to be found. 
> 
> I didn't realize how much this version of Bucky meant to me until I needed him again and I dug him up. I hope someone else is glad to have him back, too.
> 
> Enjoy!

“You look fine,” Natasha said.

“Fine or _fine_?” Barnes asked.

He had refused to wear the jacket. Barnes thought it looked like the sort of thing he’d wear for a job interview at Safeway. Wearing the vest over a shirt suited him better. The white button-down was brand new and crisp so that was about the most polished he could feel before it was all _too_ nice. He’d had the idea that it wouldn’t be as easy to be spot him if he wore it with the sleeves nicely clasped around his wrists with some cufflinks, which he’d never worn before. Nat helped him figure out how they were supposed to stay on.

Then he realized it wouldn’t matter. Everybody knew his face, and covering up the tattoos and the metal arm wasn’t going to do shit. So he stood in front of the mirror, hoping he looked alright. He gave her back the cufflinks and rolled the shirt to the elbows, revealing shiny metal and black ink. He’d wrapped his long center length of hear up into a messy bun and rubbed the newly shaved hair on the sides of his head.

He smoothed the front of his almost-black grey vest and looked to Natasha. The softness in the tilt of her head was approval, but he saw the worry in her eyes.

“What?” Barnes asked.

“I wish I could go and say hey,” Natasha said. “Steve did a lot for me. So did SHIELD, before I knew what it was. This is the last day we can be in town.”

“I know. I won’t tell Steve you were here. But the fact that I look all cleaned up might be a clue.”

“He’s going to be too happy to see you to think about it.”

“Steve will ask about you, Nat. And about Sam. How are the two of you anyway?”

Barnes could tell the happiness in the next smile was real, because she’d hidden it so quickly. There was also the small sway in her hips.

“He’s not so bad at the tracking-down-Hydra-bolt-holes thing,” she admitted. “I think we’ll have fun overseas.”

“Honeymooners,” Barnes teased.

“Shut up. Wear the plugs with the stars in them.”

“The lawyers wouldn’t let me talk to him at all, Nat.”

Her hand was on his shoulder the next second. He sighed, letting his shoulders drop.

She and Sam had been the only people he’d talked to at all after everything had come to a head. Whatever bullshit the media slung around, he could still call Nat and Sam and within an hour he’d find the steady center again. Pundits and politicians could talk all they liked, but they would never know what it was like to have gone through it.

“Like I said,” Natasha said. “He’s going to be really happy to see you.”

 

#

 

The doors to the courthouse opened with a click and Barnes pushed himself off the Grecian column he had been resting against. The sound seemed to jump into his bones. He jolted to attention as he saw Steve walk out, flanked on one side by a harrowed woman who he recognized as his lawyer.

Steve saw Barnes and stopped short. Barnes saw his lips part and knew that ridiculous tell and what it meant.

They hadn’t known each other that long. Just the weeks of the biggest crisis he’d ever known. Steve hadn’t had any reason to trust him and Barnes really hadn’t understood why. All he trusted was the way Steve looked at him.

Steve walked up to him, as if the press weren’t there. As if the lawyer who was asking him to wait were invisible. He was _strolling_. Genuinely strolling over. Barnes rubbed the short hairs on the back of his head.

“I probably should have waited somewhere else,” Barnes said when Steve was right in front of him. “But I figured—“

Steve gathered Barnes up in his arms. The hug made Barnes feel grounded, and he was sure Steve felt the same. Of course there was the spare camera flash. He was getting used to it. Barnes pulled away and saw the light in Steve’s eyes when he smiled.

“Let’s get out of here,” Barnes said. “I bet you smell like jail.”

Ignoring the shouts from the press behind him, Steve put his arm around Barnes’ shoulder and they walked out of the courtroom and into the city.

 

#

 

The Potomac was glittering with the evening sun. Not quite setting, but low enough to cast colors over the river’s water.

“Have you been alright?” Steve asked.

“You’re the one who’s been in prison,” Barnes said.

“You and everybody else knows that I didn’t have to be there if I didn’t want to be. I was keeping an eye on the courts. People are surprisingly delicate about baseless accusations if you’re a World War II vet and the symbol of the country. I didn’t let them get away with anything.”

“Oh, I know. I was watching. I actually bought a TV for it.”

“I’m sorry I had to drive you to those extremes.”

Barnes laughed, leaning far across the railing before pushing himself back up.

“Really, Bucky,” Steve said. “Are you okay?”

Barnes let his shoulders drop. The water licked the side of the stone balcony. He listened to it and he steadied himself.

“I know it’s where this all started and all,” Barnes said. “But I went to the VA while you were occupied antagonizing Congress. Sam recommended a guy. I like him. I thought maybe I wasn’t exactly the kind of person who could be in a group anymore, but then I met them. He led it and I actually talked.”

“You’re going to keep going?” Steve asked.

“Yeah. I really am.”

There was that insufferable look again, twinkling eyes that were tight around the edges. Steve was _proud_. Barnes rolled his eyes. Of course he was.

“So, you got it,” Steve said, pointing to his own nose.

Barnes fiddled with the septum piercing, an addition that wasn’t too big, just a small, black horseshoe.

“Yeah. Surprisingly fast healing turnover on this one,” he said.

Steve laughed and looked across the water.

“I do smell like jail,” Steve said. “I’m going to go home and I’m going to shower.”

 

#

 

By ‘home,’ Steve had meant the new secure apartment that had been built for him. It was weird walking through a holographic wall to get into an apartment but once inside, he loved it. The space was big and open, a long loft that stretched through the entire floor. Not a lot of furniture had been brought in, and none of it was set up. It was nice to be in a place with so much space when he was used to a cramped studio.

“I got the digs set up just like you like it,” someone said.

Barnes whirled around at the sound of an unexpected person. His heart jumped into his throat when he saw the man in the expensive suit and equally expensive sneakers walk towards them. He knew his eyes were buggy and wide, but he couldn’t really do anything about it.

“Am I early for the housewarming?” Steve said.

Tony Stark flipped a little, transparent device and handed it to Steve.

“The whole place is remote controlled,” Tony said. “Windows have a sheen which means you can look out and nobody can see in. There’s a nice little AI, not too much personality, just bare-bones, but let me know if you want the upgrade. Sound system’s amazing, by the way.”

“You can’t just walk into my apartment.”

“I am _technically_ your boss and this is a business expense so I’m just—“

“Tony.”

“I’m just lookin’ out.”

Tony finally looked at Barnes, and Barnes wished he hadn’t. He was sure that he knew. Steve would never tell him about his confession in the mansion bedroom. He wouldn’t have. But by the way Stark was staring at him—evaluating him with a top-to-bottom, bottom-to-top flick of the eyes—he was completely sure _he knew_. He knew about the gumball machine action figure and the fact that Iron Man had helped him survive for a little while.

“I—um,” Barnes started.

“Come here,” Tony said, gesturing to himself.

Steve nodded that he really could. Barnes took a few steps and didn’t expect that Stark would put something in front of his eyes which blinked and pulsed. He jerked back in surprise and his right hand was taken and pressed into glass.

“All set up,” Tony said. “Now you two can both have access to your little love-nest.”

Barnes rubbed his eyes, though the spots were tough to blink away.

“It’s not a love-nest,” Steve said.

“It _will be_ if you turn on the mood lighting,” Tony said.

Tony turned to him and his lackadaisical face had become firm and serious.

“Barnes.”

Tony Stark had his hand out and Barnes took it. He had never entertained the idea that he would really get to have a handshake from Iron Man. Yet here he was.

“Iraq,” Tony said. “Right?”

Stark was only saying the ‘right’ for Barnes’ sake. He didn’t know about the action figure or his confession, but he had known something else. In the simple grip was a knowledge of their shared decade. It was the handshake of a man who took his own weapons off the market for men like Barnes.

“Come by the tower next time you’re in New York,” Tony said. “I’ve got fantastic customization equipment. If I can take a missile to the face and still look pretty shiny, we can pimp you out a bit.”

“Thank you,” Barnes said.

“No, thank you,” Tony said. “Honestly, we didn’t think Cap could go much longer without getting laid.”

Tony roughly smacked Barnes on the arm and he could see the pained expression on Steve’s face.

“Thank you, Tony,” Steve said.

Tony wheeled away and made for the exit.

“The pictures in the paper were very cute, by the way,” Tony said. “Very Instagram. I was thinking _Walden_.”

“Go away, Tony.”

 

#

 

Barnes sat down by the window. Steve was taking a pretty long shower, something Barnes remembered being very necessary the few times he’d been in lockup for fights. They would have kept him somewhere nice, but it would be the same.

He watched the people go by on the street and felt safe knowing they couldn’t see him. He thought about the lives they got to live without being listened in on, not having to worry about being too smart or writing down the wrong thoughts. For a few minutes everything felt good.

The sound of the shower stopped. Barnes pulled himself out of the calm and stood up. The nervousness gathered in his chest. He took an envelope out of his vest’s inner pocket. He looked at the things inside, like he thought they might have disappeared the last time he had obsessively checked on them. He slid the envelope back inside.

Steve took a few strides out of the bathroom, his sweatpants hanging loosely off his hips and rubbing a towel into his short hair. Barnes took a moment to collect himself, opening his mouth to say something.

Barnes felt a thrill go through him. There was the small part in his mouth as he took in the sight of Barnes. Then Steve looked firmer, his jaw clamped down.

“It’s been a long week,” Barnes said, raising a brow.

It was a short path between Steve lifting Barnes up and slamming him against the wall. Barnes shouted his breath out and smelled brick dust when he inhaled. The next breath was shared with Steve. The kiss was bruising and they weren’t afraid of grazing teeth and the metal that studded Barnes’ face.

“I guess we’re done fucking around,” Barnes growled, clawing at Steve’s naked back, the force of his metal fingers eliciting a moan.

He knew why Steve had been gentle, why Steve had used his fingers the first time and why they had fucked like they had been testing the waters in the Shield base. Steve cared, to Barnes’ infinite frustration. He cared, and after all that experimentation he was finally certain he didn’t have to hold back.

Steve had used up his patience unbuttoning the vest, so when he got to the shirt it was ripped open to reveal a naked chest covered in black and gray ink. He tore Barnes out of his clothes like he were unwrapping his Christmas presents in large, excited chunks.

The force of Steve rolling them over so they pressed against the window knocked a lot of his hair from his bun. Barnes thought they would shatter the glass and braced himself in the window frame. The glass didn’t make any noise of complaints. Holographic, state-of-the art protective Stark technology would stop a bullet. He felt his back press against the smooth glass. He realized that nobody below would see them. He let Steve get on his knees and Barnes smiled, laughing, as Steve warmed him up. Barnes saw Steve’s other hand grabbing himself through his sweatpants. It was the second-best part of the view when he looked down.

Steve grabbing Barnes and wheeling them back to his bed was like he was going to be thrown by a wrestler. In a way he was. They slammed into the bed, which didn’t creak, but did slide a bit across the floor.

“Adamantium, right?” Barnes said.

“Yes,” Steve said between kisses.

“Is the floor adamantium?”

Steve stopped and lifted himself up. He furrowed his brow.

“I guess we’ll find out,” Steve said.

He picked up Barnes by the hip. Barnes lifted himself up so he was close to Steve, arms extended off his shoulders as their faces came close.

“You know,” Barnes said. “I thought you looked pure, wholesome vanilla when I first saw you.”

“I like proving people wrong,” Steve said.

It didn’t take much for Steve to get into Barnes. Very little lube was one of the best perks of being a super soldier, in Barnes’ view. He gritted his teeth and growled when Steve was finally, _finally_ , all the way in him, no exploring fingers or gentle rocking needed.

Barnes straddled Steve and grabbed a hold of the frame. He was surprised that the metal arm, sounding in whirs as the slats moved to give him a better grip, didn’t crush the frame. Adamantium was tough stuff. Steve laid back as Barnes fucked himself on him, the grunts blocked with gritted teeth.

“Are you going to let me do all the work?” Barnes said inside a smile.

He knew he didn’t have to, but it was fun to egg Steve on. Steve grabbed him and threw him underneath him. Barnes couldn’t get a grip on frames or sheets before being fucked in a different spot, thrown around in a new position each time. It was like being constantly displaced in his perception of time or space, losing track of where the head or the foot of the bed was.

“I think I’m falling in love with you,” Barnes screamed right as he was about to come, half-muffled in a pillow as he was bent over and pressed down.

He couldn’t stop himself from saying it. Sometimes words tumbled out right before he came when it was rough, instructions usually, begging for just the thing he wanted. This was a new kind of sex-addled confession.

“Get out of your own way,” Steve mumbled in his ear. “We’ve been falling in love from the start.”

Barnes came with a yell. He expected to feel embarrassment for the cheesiness of the timing, but he couldn’t manage it.

Another minute and it was Steve’s turn to shout an orgasm with his right hand in a vice-grip on the back of Barnes’ neck, the other squeezing him at the hip.

They breathed heavy, like they had just ran for miles and miles, chests rising and falling as their bodies craved oxygen. Barnes’ legs were shaking and useless, sometimes jerking with the little pulses that travelled in the afterglow.

Steve laid a single kiss on the tattoo of a beautiful blue bird on his neck before pulling out of his body. Barnes found space again, knowing their heads were at the foot of the bed, looking out into the rest of the loft. Barnes felt the strength go out of him and his body collapsed, left hand falling off the adamantium frame in clicks and clacks of metal against metal.

He and Steve laid together for a moment in the glorious absence of thought. Barnes was floating in an empty brain and he had never been so glad to feel as if the world had lost its gravity.

“Hey,” Barnes said when he could actually form words again. “I had something I was going to talk to you about.”

Steve brought his head up. Barnes rolled over so they could look face each other. He glanced behind Steve.

“Where’s my vest?” Barnes asked.

Steve lifted himself up and looked down. He found the black vest and handed it to him. Barnes had to summon a lot of reserve to get up on his elbow and sift through the pocket. The envelope was still inside.

“What is that?” Steve asked.

Barnes slapped the envelope onto Steve’s chest and collapsed with the effort. Steve collected the envelope and peered inside. After a few moments he realized what it was and a slow smile spread across his face.

“What are these for?” Steve asked.

“I wanna ask you out on a date,” Barnes said.

Steve laughed, low and self-deprecating.

“I thought dating wasn’t something for a guy like you?” Steve said.

“Haven’t you figured me out yet?” Barnes said. “I do whatever the hell I god damn please.”

 

#

 

“I SWEAR TO GOD IF YOU DON’T GET THAT BALL-- _DON’T FUCK UP THIS THROW. GET HIM. YES!_ ”

Barnes pumped his arms and slammed back down into the stadium seat as the crowd around him cheered.

“That was a weak goddamn throw,” Steve said, gesturing at the field. “They need to take him out. Look at him, he’s sweating bullets. The next time a ball comes his way he’ll step aside like it’s polite.”

“TAKE HIM OFF THE FIELD,” Barnes screamed, jumping forward and leaning over the rail.

Steve hooked him around the band of his jeans and pulled him back. Barnes grinned and laughed, falling into the chair. He propped his black boots up in front of him as the next hitter made his way to the plate. Steve shoved the brim of Barnes’ hat down over his eyes.

Barnes took off the hat and slicked his hair back before putting it back on. Apart from the baseball hat, not much other than the cheesy fry he threw into his mouth next made him seem like he belonged in a baseball stadium. He wore dark blue gauge plugs in the shape of wings that dangled by his jaw. His tank top was covered in zig zags of zippers, a brown, sleeveless, hooded vest hung past his hips, and his trousers were black denim with padded pleather knees. But there would be no point in trying to blend in, and he wouldn’t have made the effort anyway.

“This is pretty good for my first ball game in seventy years,” Steve said.

“Oh no,” Barnes said and rolled his head backwards.

“What?”

“I was going for casual. I was going for super-casual. This was the most casual first date I could think of.”

“It’s still casual.”

“It would be if I didn’t know about the seventy years thing.”

“It’s fine.”

“Honestly, you should have lead with that when I gave you the tickets.”

Barnes grabbed his soda and took a massive slurp out of the cup that was larger than his head.

That was when he looked up.

 _Fucking jumbotrons_ , Barnes though.

He dipped his head. Everybody knew who they were and they were cheering. It was that part of the game where they passed over all the famous people who’d shown up to watch the Nationals play at home. He knew they did that at every game, but he was hoping to avoid it. He was just glad it wasn’t the kiss cam.

There was a few surprised yelps from people who had no idea the Winter Soldier and Captain America were there. Barnes waved weakly and hid a bit under his hat—until he saw Steve giving him rabbit ears, and he couldn’t help elbowing him in the ribs. A fair few people laughed and Barnes and Steve laughed with them.

The camera moved on, up to the luxury box. The crowd didn’t react to any of the politicians, stadium owners, and rich men milling around and drinking out of tall flutes.

Steve laid his arm over the back of Barnes’ seat and relaxed with him, joining Barnes by putting his feet up on the rails.

“This suits you,” Steve says.

“What?” Barnes asked. “Cheese fries?”

“You’re happy.”

Barnes looked up into the blue, clear sky that stretched up above them. He was. He usually had to look back, bitterly, at some untouchable time far behind him to know that, at some point, he had been.

He lived in a world where aliens had ripped through the sky; where men thought they could make people better by taking choice away; where violence had made his body the collateral of the world's horrors. There would be dark hours. He would get dragged down by PTSD, his moods would turn black, and he couldn’t help the disasters that had nothing to do with him or his choices.

He’d believed for too long that the world would hollow him out until he couldn’t stand it anymore and there would be no more smiling, laughing, or caring about anything in the world. The truth rushed into him, a warm glow that manifested in a smile. He took the time to know it. He took the time to know that he wasn’t just happy, but he was strong enough to seize his own life.

“Yeah,” Barnes whispered. “I am, aren’t I?”

Sure, all that bad stuff would still happen. But it all curved back to happiness in the end. 

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Decommissioned](https://archiveofourown.org/works/3476861) by [Merytsetesh](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Merytsetesh/pseuds/Merytsetesh)




End file.
